This study investigates the existence of political rents in bank lending, using a comprehensive loan-level data set of the universe of commercial loans in Mexico from 2003 to 2012. Identification relies on changes in the state of origin of a senate committee chairman as a source of exogenous...

Using big datasets from four diverse sources, of both suppliers and facilitators or recipients of digital payment platforms, we conduct a comprehensive analysis of the impact of unexpected demonetization in India on payment digitization. The drying-up of cash due to demonetization leads to a...

Working at home benefits workers with low fixed costs and the ability to engage in joint market and household production. We evaluate a large-scale reform in Singapore that allows the possibility of business creation at one's residential property and study whether the option of home-based...

Using a unique dataset that merges bankruptcy and motor events with personal data in Singapore, this study finds significant evidence of gender gap in personal bankruptcy risk. We show that the women' odds in bankruptcy events is 28% of the men's odds controlling for demographic, housing types...

Using a comprehensive sample of credit card data from a leading Chinese bank, we find that government bureaucrats receive 16% higher credit lines than non-bureaucrats with similar income and demographics, but their accounts experience a significantly higher likelihood of delinquency and debt...

This paper adopts a novel approach to examine the roles of gender difference and intra-household economic power in mortgage signing order. We develop an “economic power” index based on relative economic power within the same-sex couple households. We then use this measure along with gender...