Loan markets often contain lenders with contrasting business models and ownership structures. But does that matter for outcomes in these markets? We examine whether it does using a loan-level data set of mortgage transactions in the United Kingdom. We find the type of lender can matter for...

Existing research has largely relied on employee surveys to measure organisational culture despite the significant shortcomings of this approach. We use multiple, unobtrusive sources of data to gain rich insights into bank culture without ever having to ask employees to ‘show us your...

We use data on business registrations in the UK to study the response of firm entry to the Covid-19 pandemic. We find that firm entry increased during the pandemic, unlike typical recessions where firm entry declines. The rise in firm creation is driven by individual entrepreneurs creating...

'Zombie lending' occurs when a lender supports an otherwise insolvent borrower. Recent studies document that zombie lending to European firms has been widespread following the onset of the European sovereign debt crisis. This paper develops a quantitative model to study the impact of these...

Can policymakers improve macroeconomic performance by encouraging the entry of high‑performance start‑ups? To answer this question, we construct a novel and comprehensive data set on 1.3 million start‑ups in 10 European countries. We apply cluster analysis to identify distinct start‑up...

Long-term fixed-rate mortgage contracts protect households against interest rate risk, yet most countries have relatively short interest rate fixation lengths. Using administrative data from the UK, the paper finds that the choice of fixation length tracks the life-cycle decline of credit risk...

Macroprudential policies have been shown to be beneficial during booms but there is limited evidence on how well they operate during periods of stress. Using a difference‑in‑differences empirical strategy we test whether regulatory capital buffers, a key component of the Basel III reforms,...

Shocks to energy prices can have a direct impact on homeowners’ disposable income, affecting their ability to pay their mortgage. Properties’ energy efficiency can provide some protection against the transition risk of rising energy costs. Anecdotally, lenders appear to be increasingly...

We model the evolution of stylised bank loan portfolios to assess the impact of IFRS 9 and US GAAP expected loss model (ECL) on the cyclicality of loan write-off losses, loan loss provisions (LLPs) and capital ratios of banks, relative to the incurred loss model of IAS 39. We focus on the...

We study the effects of negative interest rate policies (NIRP) on the transmission of monetary policy through cross-border lending. Using bank-level data from international financial centres (IFCs) – the United Kingdom, Hong Kong and Ireland – we examine how NIRP in the economies where banks...