"This paper studies the factors banks perceive as drivers and obstacles to financing small and medium enterprises (SMEs), focusing on the role of competition and the institutional framework. Using a survey of banks in Argentina and Chile, the paper shows that, despite alleged differences in the...

This paper provides evidence that commercial lenders in Peru free ride off their peers' screening efforts. Leveraging a discontinuity in the loan approval process of a large bank, the study finds that competing lenders responded to additional loan approvals by issuing approvals of their own....

During the past decades, firms from emerging economies have significantly increased the amount of financing obtained in capital markets. Whereas the literature argues that international markets have been an important contributor to this process, the role of domestic markets is mostly unknown. By...