A firm's top manager and a government official may be connected due to special circumstances. This social relationship or political connection may provide industrial polluters with protection or a “pollution shelter” which could lead to severe environmental deterioration. This paper aims to...

Transition economies like Russia lack properly functioning financial markets and institutions, which results in severe agency and information problems. Business groups in such markets have the potential to offer benefits to member firms, but they also may destroy value. Using a unique database...

The Arab Spring is a clear indicator of the urgency of achieving inclusive growth and ensuring job creation in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, where private sector development is still hindered by limited access to credit. Following Kiyotaki and Moore's (1997) seminal model, we...

We use data on 11,233 firms across 22 emerging markets to analyze how credit constraints and low-quality firm management inhibit corporate investment in green technologies. For identification we exploit quasi-exogenous variation in local credit conditions and in exposure to weather shocks. Our...

The pace of transition in China over the last two decades has led to great variation across the country in terms of institutional and financial development. In this paper, using a panel of Chinese provinces during the period 1993-2006, we empirically investigate the determinants of the...

This paper studies monetary policy transmission through BigTech and traditional banks. By comparing business loans made by a BigTech bank with those made by traditional banks, it finds that BigTech credit amplifies monetary policy transmission mainly through the extensive margin. Specifically,...

We examine the effect of regional favoritism on the access of firms to credit. Using firm-level data on a large sample of 29,000 firms covering 47 countries, we investigate the hypothesis that firms in the birth regions of national political leaders have better access to credit. Our evidence...

The paper presents an econometric study of the two bank ratings assigned by Moody's Investors Service. According to Moody's methodology, foreign-currency long-term deposit ratings are assigned on the basis of Bank Financial Strength Ratings (BFSR), taking into account quot;external bank support...

We find empirical evidence that the Chinese banking system has benefited from the entry of foreign investors through higher profitability and increased efficiency of the banking system. Foreign participation, which consists of a minority stake in a Chinese bank (in contrast to the typical...

The paper examines how the type of ownership affects the profit efficiency of Russian banks. Using bank-quarter data for selected banks in the period 2004–2015, we combine stochastic frontier anal-ysis (SFA) methodology with an intermediary approach to assess profit efficiency. Our key...