Using the most recent machine learning-based image-processing techniques, we investigate whether banks factor borrowing firm's chief executive officer (CEO) facial trustworthiness into bank loan contracting. We find that banks tend to grant more favorable loan terms to firms with...

We examine the contractual implications of lender trust in bank loan contracts. We measure a lender's trust using the average trust attitudes in the ancestral country of origin of its CEO. We find that banks with trusting CEOs charge lower loan rates. Furthermore, trusting lenders sanction...

It is well recognized that relationship banking helps to relieve the credit constraints faced by SMEs to access bank finance. Trust is an important part of relationship banking. However, the term trust is nebulous,and relationship banking means different things to different banksand different...