Recent evidence suggests only modest social and economic impacts of microfinance. Favorable cost-benefit ratios then depend on low costs. This paper uses proprietary data on 1,335 microfinance institutions between 2005 and 2009, jointly serving 80.1 million borrowers, to calculate the costs of...

This paper examines how the ability to access long-term debt affects firm-level growth volatility. The analysis finds that firms in industries with stronger preference to use long-term finance relative to short-term finance experience lower growth volatility in countries with better-developed...

Using a data set covering about 277,000 firms across 79 countries over the period 2004-11, this paper examines the evolution of firms' capital structure during the global financial crisis and its aftermath in 2010-11. The study finds that firm leverage and debt maturity declined in advanced...

This paper examines time-series and cross-country variations in default risk co-dependence in the global banking system. The authors construct a default risk measure for all publicly traded banks using the Merton contingent claim model, and examine the evolution of the correlation structure of...