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...

Does high leverage incentivize banks to systematically originate and hold riskier loans? I construct a novel data set consisting of 3 million small business and home mortgage loans, matched to the specific banks that originated them and verified to be held on bank portfolios, rather than sold. I...

It was once conventional wisdom that lenders routinely influenced corporate managers’ decision making. Covenants constrained borrower risk taking and compelled specific affirmative obligations to protect lenders. Recent policy discussion, however, laments loan markets’ turn to various forms...

We use the subset of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans that were extended to public firms as a laboratory to separate between favoritism and informational advantages in lending relationships. Because PPP loans are guaranteed by the government and banks do not need to carefully screen...

An important question in banking is how strict supervision affects bank lending and in turn local business activity. Supervisors forcing banks to recognize losses could choke off lending and amplify local economic woes. But stricter supervision could also change how banks assess and manage...

It was once conventional wisdom that lenders routinely influenced corporate managers’ decision making. Covenants constrained borrower risk taking and compelled specific affirmative obligations to protect lenders. Recent policy discussion, however, laments loan markets’ turn to various forms...

This paper examines banks' disclosures and loss recognition in the financial crisis and identifies several core issues for the link between accounting and financial stability. Our analysis suggests that, going into the financial crisis, banks' disclosures about relevant risk exposures were...

An important question in banking is how strict supervision affects bank lending and in turn local business activity. Forcing banks to recognize losses could choke off lending and amplify local economic woes, especially after financial crises. But stricter supervision could also lead to changes...

Academic research on loan loss provisioning and the earlier incurred credit losses (ICL) model has a long tradition in the literature. Academic criticism of the ICL was taken up by the Financial Stability Board after the financial crisis of 2018, leading to a fundamental revision of accounting...

We examine the coexistence of banks and financial markets, studying a credit market where the qualities of investment projects are not observable and the investment decisions of entrepreneurs are not contractible. Standard banks can alleviate moral-hazard problems by securing a portion of a...