Systemic banking and financial crises invariably result in the transfer of a large volume of distressed financial assets into the hands of the government, which must later dispose of them. The fiscal and economic costs of the crisis and the speed of recovery depend on how effectively the...

We empirically examine whether a major government intervention in the small-firm credit market yields significantly better results in markets that are less financially developed. The government intervention that we investigate is SBA-guaranteed lending. The literature on financing small and...