We analyze the relation between comprehensive measures of board quality and the cost as well as the non-price terms of bank loans. We show that firms with higher quality boards and even a single (non-insider) advisory board member borrow at lower interest rates. This relation exists even after...

The paper argues that the networked firms have an advantage in securing bank finance in countries with weak legal and judicial institutions. An analysis of recent BEEPS data from sixteen CEE transition countries lends some support to this hypothesis. Firms affiliated to business associations are...

We show that household leverage is an early and powerful predictor of the 2007 to 2009 recession. Counties in the U.S. that experienced a large increase in household leverage from 2002 to 2006 showed a sharp relative decline in durable consumption starting in the third quarter of 2006 – a full...

Bank specialization leads to expertise, including knowledge on zombie borrowers and the negative impact they exert on healthy borrowers. This induces specialized banks to reduce zombie lending. The reduction in zombie lending is larger when the scope and opportunity cost of negative spillovers...

We study the magnitude and nature of racial disparities in the U.S. small business credit market. Exploiting a unique dataset containing rich loan contract information, including firm and lender characteristics, we document sizable racial differentials in small business lending, measured by loan...

The aim of this study is to provide a systematic analysis of the effect of information technology (IT) reputation (i.e., the accumulation of public recognition of the quality of a firm's IT capability) on bank loan contracting. More specifically, we are interested in the effect of IT reputation...

The commercial real estate market is pro-cyclical. This feature, together with the relative size of the industry and the large capital inflows, has made this sector relevant for financial stability. Using a novel loan level data set covering the commercial real estate portfolios of Dutch banks...

We analyze the problem of soft budget constraints of enterprises financed by banks in transition economies and review the similarities and the differences in various models addressing that issue. We reconstruct these models as several variants of a basic sequential model of soft budget...

Does market power of banks affect firm performance? To answer this question we examine 25,236 syndicated loan facilities granted between 2000 and 2010 by 296 banks to 9,029 US non-financial firms. Accounting for both observed and unobserved bank and firm heterogeneity, we find that firms that...

For the sixth time, international academics and practitioners met for a successful credit risk conference. Keynote speeches and academic sessions highlighted current developments and necessary improvements in areas such as fintech, regulation, credit ratings and risk analysis. Digitization also...