This paper provides evidence on the relationship between finance and high growth in China. Employing data for 27 Chinese provinces over the period 1995-2003, we assess the impact of banks and non-bank financial institutions on local economic growth. We argue that banks have had a larger impact...

We conduct face-to-face interviews with bank CEOs to classify 397 banks across 21 countries as either relationship or transaction lenders. We then use the geographic coordinates of these banks' branches and of 14,100 businesses to analyze how the lending techniques of banks in the vicinity of...

Does bank experience reduce moral hazard in credit markets? Using U.S. corporate loan-level data, we find that, while experience with borrowers and co-lenders reinforces banks’ monitoring incentives, sector experience dilutes them, calling for larger involvement in lending syndicates. In...

Investors face reduced incentives to finance projects that devalue their legacy investments. We formalize this "asset overhang" and study its drivers. We apply our framework to the climate-banking nexus, where the net-zero transition effectively poses a dilemma for banks: while environmental...

This paper studies the impact of bank mergers on firm-bank lending relationships using information from individual loan contracts in Belgium. We analyse the effects of bank mergers on the probability of borrowers maintaining their lending relationships and on their ability to continue tapping...

Assessing the impacts of bank mergers on small firms requires separating borrowers with single versus multiple banking relationships and distinguishing the three alternatives of "staying," "dropping," and "switching" of relationship. Single-relationship borrowers who "switch" to another bank...

Do lending relationships mitigate credit rationing? Does securitization influence the impact of lending relationships on credit rationing? If so, is its impact differently in normal periods versus crisis periods? This paper combines several unique data sets to address these questions. Employing...

Do lending relationships mitigate credit rationing? Does securitization influence the impact of lending relationships on credit rationing differently in normal periods versus crisis periods? This paper combines several unique data sets to address these questions. Employing a disequilibrium model...

We provide the first evidence on how the introduction of information sharing via a public credit registry affects banks' lending decisions. We employ a unique dataset containing detailed information on credit card applications and decisions from one of the leading banks in China. While we do not...