Using a comprehensive database of European firms, we study how private equity affects the rate of firm entry. We find that private equity investment benefits new business incorporation, especially in industries with naturally higher entry rates and R&D intensity. A two standard deviation...

We provide the first cross-country evidence of the effect of investment by private equity firms on innovation, focusing on a sample of European countries and using Kortum and Lerner’s (2000) empirical methodology. Using an 18-country panel covering the period 1991-2004, we study how private...

We study the effect of interbank market integration on small firm finance in the build-up to the 2007-2008 financial crisis. We use a comprehensive data set that contains contract terms on individual loans to 6,047 firms across 14 European countries between 1998:01 and 2005:12. We account for...

We study how financial market efficiency affects a measure of diversification of output across industrial sectors borrowed from the portfolio allocation literature. Using data on sector-level value added for a wide cross section of countries and for various levels of disaggregation, we construct...

I analyze output growth, volatility, and skewness as the joint outcomes of financial openness. Using an industry panel of 53 countries over 45 years, I find that financial openness increases simultaneously mean growth and the negative skewness of the growth process. The increase in output...

Based on survey data covering 8,387 firms in 20 countries we compare credit demand and credit supply for firms in Eastern Europe to those for firms in selected Western European countries. We find that firms in Eastern Europe have a higher need for credit than firms in Western Europe, and that a...

How does home ownership affect new business creation? We develop a model of career choice in the presence of liquidity constraints in which shocks to the value of real estate affect the propensity of potential entrepreneurs to borrow against the value of their property. Using a large US...

This paper provides the first empirical evidence that bank regulation is associated with cross-border spillover effects through the lending activities of large multinational banks. We analyze business lending by 155 banks to 9613 firms in 1976 different localities across 16 countries. We find...

Using a unique survey database of 8265 firms from 25 transition economies, I find that lack of access to finance in general, and to bank credit in particular, is associated with significantly lower investment in on-the-job training. This effect is stronger in education-intensive industries and...

This paper conducts the first empirical study of the bank balance sheet channel using data on discouraged and informally rejected firms in addition to information on the formal loan granting process. I take advantage of a unique survey data on the credit experience of firms in 8 economies that...