Imperfect capital markets and commitment problems impede lumpy human capital investments. Labeled loans have been postulated as a potential solution to both constraints, but little is known about the role of the label in influencing investment choices in practice. We draw on a cluster randomized...

The agricultural sector in developing countries like Nigeria is characterized by low productivity, driven partly by low use of modern agricultural technologies. Poor access to credit is seen as a key barrier to adoption of these technologies. Policy discourses and literature often associate...

We use a French firm-level panel data set over the period 1993-2004 to analyze the relationship between credit constraints and firms' R&D behavior over the business cycle. Our main results can be summarized as follows: (i) the share of R&D investment over total investment is countercyclical...

The paper shows that in a general equilibrium model with two countries, characterized by different levels of financial development, and two technologies, one more productive and more financially demanding than the other, the following stylized facts can be replicated: 1) the persistent US...

The paper analyzes a linear growth model with idiosyncratic productivity shocks and self-enforcing loan contracts. Agents cannot commit to repay their loans because of insuficient collateral, but the threat of credit market exclusion prevents agents from default. Credit repayment is enforced by...

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...

This paper shows that in a stylized model with two countries, characterized by different levels of financial development, the following facts can be replicated: 1) persistent current account surpluses and 2) high TFP growth in China. Under autarky, entrepreneurs in the emerging country...

We evaluate the effectiveness of a partial credit guarantee program implemented in a large Italian region using unique microdata from a broad set of firms. Our results show that the policy was effective to the extent that it resulted in an improved financial condition for the beneficiary firms....

In this paper, we formalize the view that economic development requires high rates of productive entrepreneurship, and this requires an efficient matching between entrepreneurial talent and production technologies. We first explore the role of financial development in promoting such efficient...

A cornerstone of the Chinese growth model has been the opening up of its economy to private competition. Some observers claim that China has changed course since joining the WTO by increasingly promoting ‘state capitalism’, the large State Owned Enterprises, thereby compromising a growth...