In the past few decades, commercial banks have substantially reduced the number of their branch offices. We address the question of whether or not the increased distance from the lenders correspondingly faced by many small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) translates into a lower volume of...

In recent years, commercial banks have substantially reduced the number of theirbranch offices. We address the question of whether or not the increased distance tolenders caused by branch office closures translates into a lower credit supply for smalland medium sized enterprises (SMEs). We use a...

This paper is motivated by high levels of non-performing loans in the Zimbabwean banking sector since dollarization in 2009. Banks are well known for their function of providing liquidity in the economy. Normal loan awarding require credit analysis. Credit analysis is undertaken to assess the...

Why do some economic systems depend on bank financing while others rely on capital markets and bond financing? We propose a political economy model in which elites favor a bank-based system, which increases their rents due to reduced competition. If suffrage is restricted to the elite, this will...

Financial systems and public treasuries are communicating vessels: strength or weakness in one flows to the other, and back. This chapter considers the implications of this insight using case studies from Europe, Asia, and Latin America. The connection is not unique to Europe, although it does...

In this paper, we discuss whether and how bank lobbying can lead to regulatory capture and have real consequences through an overview of the motivations behind bank lobbying and of recent empirical evidence on the subject. Overall, the findings are consistent with regulatory capture, which...

Since 1992 Ethiopia has been engaged in liberalizing its financial sector. The hallmark of the strategy is gradualism. The approach is not without problems especially from Bretton Woods Institutions that saw the reform as a sluggish process. This study examines this liberalization program by...

This paper examines the impact of both bank- and market-based financial development on economic growth in South Africa during the period from 1980 to 2012. Unlike some previous studies, the current study employs means-removed average to construct both bank- and market-based financial development...

Government-driven credit played an important role in countervailing the private credit crunch in Brazil during the recent financial crisis. However, government credit concessions continued to expand after the economy recovered. This paper investigates some important features of this expansion...