We investigate whether state-to-state political ties with a global superpower affects the pricing of international syndicated bank loans. We find statistically and economically significant effects of stronger state political ties with the United States, arguably the most dominant global...

We assess the extent to which discretion, unexplained variations in the terms of a loan contract, has varied across time and lending institutions and show that part of this discretion is due to private information that lenders have on their borrowers. We find that discretion is lower for secured...

We consider optimal capital requirements for banks' lending activities when the potential trade-off between financial stability and economic (productivity) growth is taken into account. Both sides of the trade-off are affected by banks' credit allocation, which in turn is affected by the risk...