Financial inclusion has been one of the key pillars of Colombia's development strategy for anumber of years. Financial inclusion policies have aimed at channeling microcredit to poor,spreading formal banking system usage, fostering electronic payment acceptance, andmaking financial services more...

The simultaneous unwinding of leveraged positions can trigger financial market turbulence. Although balance-sheet measures of leverage are available, it is useful to construct a measure of leverage that incorporates both on- and off-balance-sheet activities. This paper provides measures of...

Countries in the MENAP and CCA regions have the lowest levels of financial inclusion of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the world. The paper provides empirical evidence on the drivers of SME access to finance for a large sample of countries, and identifies key policy priorities for these...

This paper examines the impact of financial liberalization on fixed investment in Mexico, using establishment-level data from the manufacturing sector. It analyzes changes in cash-flow sensitivities and uses an innovative approach to explore the role of real estate as collateral and deal with a...

This paper studies the relation between firms' access to finance, labor productivity and investment using Lithuanian firm-level data from 2000–2018. To do so, we construct a measure of financial constraints. We estimate that, given firm characteristics, removing these constraints can improve...

We examine corporate sector vulnerabilities in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru. First, we identify stylized facts based on corporate financial indicators. Second, we assess vulnerability of individual firms to a sudden stop in financing through a probit model, using a panel of 18...

We examine how the cost of corporate credit varies around fiscal consolidations aimed at reducing government debt. Using a new dataset on fiscal consolidations and syndicated corporate loan data, we find that loan spreads increase with fiscal consolidations, especially for small firms, domestic...

Easy global liquidity conditions, stronger risk appetite and a retrenchment in cross-border bank lending led to a surge in emerging market firms' bond issuance in international markets (what we term “The Bon(d)anza”). Using firm-level data for five large Latin American economies, we provide...