We document the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on digital finance and fintech adoption and usage. Drawing on mobile application data from 71 countries, we estimate that the spread of COVID-19 and related government lockdowns led to between a 33.1 and 36.6 percent increase in the relative rate...

Kraay (2003) documents the lack of any systematic association between monetary policy and the outcome of a speculative attack. This paper revisits Kraay's work and modifies it by introducing an improved measure of monetary policy and an additional country-specific fundamental, short-term...

We show that laws and institutions that strengthen creditor protection increase expected recovery rates on collateral using unique internal bank data on ex-ante appraised liquidation values and market values of assets pledged as collateral from secured loans in 16 countries. Stronger creditor...

We show that laws and institutions that grant creditors stronger enforcement rights and bargaining power upon default increase expected recovery rates on collateral. Using unique data that provides ex-ante appraised liquidation values on secured loans for a single global bank, we estimate...

From the late 1980s, many countries have reformed the institutional framework governing their central banks to increase operational independence. Collecting systematic biographical information, international press coverage, and independent expert opinions, we find that over the same period...