Empirical studies in corporate finance have long been interested in the role of banks in reducing the costs of financial distress. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how various measures of bank health and how defaults of major trading partners affected the probability of bankruptcy...

After prolonged recessions, the Japanese economy finally recovered in the first half of the 2000s, and recorded sustained growth until summer 2007. The purpose of this paper is to examine, from both macro and micro perspectives, the role of international trade with China in the recovery of...

Because a borrower often faces switching costs in dealing with individual banks, the financial health of any given bank might affect the borrower's cost of funds. These costs would be particularly large for firms that have close relationships with relatively few banks. The purpose of this paper...

Trade credit is one of the most important sources of short-term external finance for small firms. Previous literature has focused mainly on the substitution of bank loans for trade credit during monetary tightening among many firms, but in this paper we investigate the role of trade credit...