This paper considers whether local bank participation exerts an impact on the spreads for syndicated loans in Russia. Following Berger, Klapper and Udell (2001), we test whether local banks possess a superior ability to deal with information asymmetries. Using a sample of 528 syndicated loans to...

This study examines how bribery influences bank debt ratios for a large sample of firms from 14 transition countries. We combine information on bribery practices from the BEEPS survey with firm-level accounting data from the Amadeus database. Bribery is measured by the frequency of extra...

To analyze whether the occurrence of elections affects access to credit for firms, we perform an investigation using firm-level data covering 44 developed and developing countries. The results show that elections impair access to credit. Specifically, firms are more credit-constrained in...