Although policy uncertainty has drawn regulators' attention in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, little is known on how to alleviate its adverse effects. In this paper, we examine the role of political connections in mitigating the detrimental impact of policy uncertainty on banks....

Are firms that are managed and owned by females-only appraised differently than those where genders mix at the top? To answer this question we study an instructive sample of 7,467 firms from 22 countries. We find that – when borrowing from banks – firms that are both managed and owned by...

Using a sample of non-financial domestic firms in transition economies from Eastern Europe and Central Asia, we examine whether and how inter-industry spillovers from FDI in the banking sector occur. Our findings show that the innovation pursued by domestic firms benefits from foreign bank...

We show that lenders charge higher interest rates for mortgages on properties exposed to a greater risk of sea level rise (SLR). This SLR premium is not evident in short-term loans and is not related to borrowers’ short-term realized default or creditworthiness. Further, the SLR premium is...

Does failure in a marriage foretell failure to repay credit? Analyzing the loan portfolio of a representative bank, we find no significant differences in the probability of default between divorcees and others, but we do find evidence for taste-based discrimination against divorcees. Compared to...

We study how information sharing between banks influences the geographical clustering of branches. A spatial oligopoly model first explains why branches cluster and how information sharing impacts price competition and equilibrium clustering. With data on 59,333 branches of 676 banks in 22...

Firms with credit-default swaps (CDS) traded on their debt may face "empty creditors'' as hedged creditors have less incentive to participate in firm restructuring. We test for the existence of empty creditors by employing an exogenous change to the bankruptcy code in Germany, that effectively...

In spite of growing regulatory pressure in most developed economies, “zombie lending” remains a widespread practice by banks. In this paper we exploit a series of large-scale on-site inspections made on the credit portfolios of several Portuguese banks to investigate how these inspections...