This paper investigates whether government support can act to increase exporting activity. We use a uniquely rich data set on Irish manufacturing plants and employ an empirical strategy that combines a non-parametric matching procedure with a difference-in-differences estimator in order to deal...

For most multi-period decision-making problems, it is generally well-accepted that the influence of information about later periods on the optimal decision in the current period reduces as we move farther into the future. If and when this influence reduces to zero, the corresponding problem...

We analyse competition among banks when banks can use creditworthiness tests that generate (imperfect) information about borrowers. When banks can strategically adjust the test characteristics by investing resources in the screening technology, we show that credit markets are not easily...

We analyze the effect of loan sales on the intensity of costly screening. Loan sales strengthen screening incentives when screening primarily improves the bank’s ability to identify profitable loans and when banks retain most of those profitable loans. However, loan sales dampen screening...

We apply a reduced form representation of product market competition, facilitating an explicit characterization of the equilibrium investments in consumer-specific screening. The effects of market structure on screening incentives depend on the microstructure of the imperfect screening...

We explore the effects of switching costs on the subgame perfect quality decisions of oligopolists with repeated price competition. We establish a strong strategic quality premium. We show that competition for the establishment of customer relationships will eliminate low-quality firms in period...

We show that information sharing among banks may serve as a collusive device. An informational sharing agreement is an a-priori commitment to reduce informational asymmetries between banks in future lending. Hence, information sharing tends to increase the intensity of competition in future...

We examine the differential effects of financial status and exporting activity on the likelihood of survival for firms in the UK and France - two countries with different financial systems. We aim to answer two main questions: What is the direct impact of financial characteristics and different...

Using firm-level data for the UK, we investigate the link between firms’ financial health, borrowing ratio and export exit, paying special attention to the recent financial crisis. Our results show that deterioration in the financial position of firms has increased the hazard of export exit...

This paper examines whether exporting activity matters for firm's price cost margins. The recent literature on exporting and productivity shows that exporters on average are more efficient than nonexporters. If that is the case we may also expect them to have different mark-ups. We investigate...