We review how technological advances and changes in regulation may shape the (future) geographical scope of banking. We first review how both physical distance and the presence of borders currently affect bank lending conditions (loan pricing and credit availability) and market presence...

This paper reviews how long-term relationships between firms and banks shape the structure and integration of banking markets worldwide. Bank relationships arise to span informational asymmetries that are endemic in financial markets. Firm-bank relationships not only entail specific benefits and...

Credit contracts are non-exclusive. A string of theoretical papers shows that nonexclusivity generates important negative contractual externalities. Employing a unique dataset, we identify how the contractual externality stemming from the non-exclusivity of credit contracts affects credit...

We study the relation between liquidity in financial markets and post-trading fees (i.e. clearing and settlement fees). The clearing and settlement agent (CSD) faces different marginal costs for different types of transactions. Costs are lower for an internalized transaction, i.e. when buyer and...

Using a novel way to identify relationship and transaction banks, we study how banks’ lending techniques affect funding to SMEs over the business cycle. For 21 countries we link the lending techniques that banks use in the direct vicinity of firms to these firms’ credit constraints at two...

Banking systems are fragile not only within one country but also within and across regions. We study the role of regional banking system characteristics for regional banking system fragility. We find that regional banking system fragility reduces when banks in the region jointly hold more liquid...

Initially, voting rights were limited to wealthy elites providing political support for stock markets. The franchise expansion induces the median voter to provide political support for banking development as this new electorate has lower financial holdings and benefits less from the uncertainty...

Banks have been heavily involved in securitization. We study whether the involvedness of a firm’s main bank into different types of securitization activity -- asset backed securities (ABS) and covered bonds -- influences credit supply before and during the 2007-8 financial crisis. Both types...

The recent financial crisis has reopened the debate on the impact of informal and formal finance on firm growth in developing countries. Using unique survey data, we find that informal finance is associated with higher sales growth for small firms and lower sales growth for large firms. We...