In this paper, we examine the impact of mergers among German savings banks on the extent to which these savings banks engage in small business lending. The ongoing consolidation in the banking industry has sparked concerns about the continuous availability of credit to small businesses which has...

This paper analyzes whether the political connections of listed firms in the United States affect the cost and terms of loan contracts. Using a hand-collected data set of the political connections of S&P 500 companies over the 2003-2008 time period, we find that the cost of bank loans is...

This paper studies whether banks charge higher or lower interest rates on loans to firms with overconfident CEOs. It establishes a theoretical model to show the relationship between the loan rate and overconfidence of the borrowing firm's CEO. It also conducts empirical analyses to test the...

This study investigates whether CEO perquisite of borrowing firms plays any significant role, both in terms of price and non-price settings, in financial contracts and reveals that lending banks demand significantly higher return (spread), more collateral, and stricter covenants from firms with...

Firm prestige reduces the cost of bank loans. Specifically, when borrowers are included in Fortune's list of “America's Most Admired Companies” (MAC), their loan costs decline by approximately 13 bps or US$5.122 million, on average. The effect appears causal. The negative relation between...

I look at the relationship between corporate loan terms and connections of board members to bankers through employment on other boards, a connection less likely to be affected by confounding factors. Specifically, I examine whether loan terms such as pricing and maturity as well as other loan...

We empirically examine the impact of bank consolidation on bank acquisition of soft information about borrowers. Using a dataset of small business financing, we find that mergers of small banks have a negative impact on soft information acquisition, whereas mergers of large banks have no impact....

This paper studies whether debt renegotiation mitigates debt overhang and improves investment efficiency. Using mergers between lenders participated in the same syndicated loans as natural experiments that exogenously reduce the number of lenders and thus make renegotiation easier, I find that...

We examine the effect of bank interventions on corporate innovation and firm value via the lens of debt covenant violations. Bank interventions have a significantly negative effect on innovation quantity, but no significant effect on quality. The reduction in innovation quantity is concentrated...

This paper investigates the impacts of board's corruption culture on the financing costs of firms. Evidence shows that lending banks attach higher loan spreads, higher total costs of borrowing, and stricter covenants to firms with a strong corruption culture in their boards. The results are...