We reconsider the role of financial intermediaries in monetary economics, and explore the hypothesis that the financial intermediary sector is the engine that drives the financial cycle through fluctuations in the price of risk. In this framework, balance sheet quantities emerge as a key...

I study the impact of the expansion in a national-level directed lending program aimed at increasing institutional credit access of small firms in India. In 2006, the Government of India changed the criterion determining the small status of firms, thereby expanding the pool of small firms...

Even as banks have decreased their exposure to residential mortgage loans since 2008, bank exposure to leveraged lending has risen dramatically. The $1 trillion total asset leveraged loan market poses a significant and growing source of credit risk to U.S. depository institutions and investors....

This paper presents a theoretical framework to understand the impact of foreign bank entry on the access to and the price of credit for different types of firms. A major point of departure from the previous literature is that incumbents' information about firms is endogenous in the model;...

Led by the growth of direct lending, private debt assets under management almost tripled over the past decade. What do we know about it and why has it grown? Using a proprietary dataset, we present new empirical facts about direct lending funds and investigate the demand and supply drivers that...

How do developments at lending institutions that alter the way they grant and monitor loans influence their borrowers' financial reporting quality (FRQ)? We examine this question by investigating the influence that privatizations of Chinese state banks (CSBs) had on the quality of their...

We study the relationship between credit expansions, macroeconomic fluctuations, and financial crises using a novel database on the sectoral distribution of private credit for116 countries starting in 1940. Theory predicts that the sectoral allocation of credit matters for distinguishing between...

Evidence abounds on the propagation of financial stresses originating in the US mortgage market to banking systems worldwide through international funding markets. But the transmission of this external funding shock to the real economy via bank lending is surprisingly under-examined, given the...

Evidence abounds on the propagation of financial stresses originating in the US mortgage market to banking systems worldwide through international funding markets. But the transmission of this external funding shock to the real economy via bank lending is surprisingly underexamined, given the...