Using household surveys and bank penetration data at the district-level in 2006 and 2009, this paper examines the impact of Equity Bank—a leading private commercial bank focusing on microfinance—on the access to banking in Kenya. Unlike other commercial banks in Kenya, Equity Bank pursues...

We examine empirically how legal origin, creditor rights, property rights, legal formalism, and financial development affect the design of price and non-price terms of bank loans in almost 60 countries. Our results support the law and finance view that private contracts reflect differences in...

Legal and institutional differences shape the ownership and terms of bank loans across the world. We show that under strong creditor protection, loans have more concentrated ownership, longer maturities, and lower interest rates. Moreover, the impact of creditor rights on loans depends on...

We consider lending and investment under asymmetric information in a small, developing economy. We allow different forms of financial contracts to arise endogenously. Financial intermediaries mitigate a moral hazard problem in investment choice through costly monitoring. We then examine the...

We examine the role of China's financial system in supporting economic growth, and explore directions of future development. First, the current financial system is dominated by a large but inefficient banking sector. Reducing the amount of non-performing loans among the major banks to normal...

China is an important counterexample to the findings in the law, institutions, finance, and growth literature: neither its legal nor financial system is well developed by existing standards, yet it has one of the fastest growing economies. We examine 3 sectors of the economy: the State Sector...

Examining a large sample of firms with ownership information from Japan, we find firms that belong to business groups (“keiretsu”) pay more cash dividends than non-keiretsu firms, especially when the affiliated dividend-receiving firms have better investment opportunities, are in financial...

We study the rise and risks in bank issuance of Wealth Management Products (WMPs), which are off-balance-sheet substitutes for deposits without the regulatory interest rate ceilings and constitute the largest shadow banking segment in China. We show that competition for deposits has a causal...

We explore the relationship between bank branch expansion, financial inclusion and profitability for Equity Bank. Unlike traditional banks, including foreign and government owned banks in Kenya, Equity Bank targets less developed territories and less privileged households. Its presence increased...

In 2002 and 2003, many Chinese banks implemented reforms that delegated authority to individual loan officers. The change followed China's entrance into the WTO and offers a plausibly exogenous shock to loan officer incentives to produce information. We find that the bank's internal risk rating...