This paper analyses the role of banks in financing SMEs in Britain and Germany. It applies a sociological institutionalist approach to understand how banks construct and manage risk, relating to SME business. The empirical analysis is based on the results of a comparative survey of a sample of...

Despite the empirical relevance of advertising strategies in concentrated markets, the economics literature is largely silent on the effect of persuasive advertising strategies on pricing and market structure and increasing (or decreasing) dominance. We propose a simple model of persuasive...

The bursting of the Japanese bubble economy in the early 1990s put the stage for a lasting lowzero-, and negative-interest rate environment, which fundamentally changed the business environment for the Japanese commercial banks. On the income side, with interest margins becoming increasingly...

This paper examines the relationship between real estate prices during the home price boom from the late 1990s into 2005 and competition among mortgage lenders. The mortgage lending business, especially with the rise of the originate-to-distribute model, had competitors with very different...

The Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) System is a large, complex, and understudied government-sponsored liquidity facility that currently has more than $1 trillion in secured loans outstanding, mostly to commercial banks and thrifts. This paper first documents the significant role played by the FHLB...

We evaluate the effects of laws designed to protect borrowers from foreclosure. We find that these laws delay but do not prevent foreclosures. We first compare states that require lenders to seek judicial permission to foreclose with states that do not. Borrowers in judicial states are no more...