We document that a firm's culture — specifically, its religiosity — affects its cost of debt. Firms in higher-religiosity counties have higher credit ratings and lower debt costs. The impact of religiosity is stronger for firms with greater information asymmetry and during recessions....

Cyclicality in the losses of bank loans is important for bank risk management. Because loans have a different risk profile than bonds, evidence of cyclicality in bond losses need not apply to loans. Based on unique data we show that the default rate and loss given default of bank loans share a...

This paper studies the use of psychometric tests, designed by the Entrepreneurial Finance Lab (EFL), as a tool to screen out high credit risk and potentially increase access to credit for small business owners in Peru. We use administrative data covering the period from June 2011 to April 2014...