International financial assistance (loans and grants) can potentially raise recipients' welfare in two ways, by affecting a direct resource transfer and by facilitating efficiency-enhancing reforms. In practice, barriers to reform limit the potential of assistance to deliver these two dividends....

The recent declines in tightening of lending standards suggest that business lending may be poised for a rebound.

This Economic Letter examines the rise in commercial real estate (CRE) lending concentration at commercial banks and the performance of CRE loans since the early 1990s. The analysis shows that while concentration in CRE lending has increased substantially at many banks, for those banks with CRE...

Managing the credit risk inherent to a corporate credit line is similar to that of a term loan, but with one key difference. For both instruments, the bank should know the borrower's probability of default (PD) and the facility's loss given default (LGD). However, since a credit line allows the...

The U.S. banking industry is experiencing a renewed interest in retail banking, broadly defined as the range of products and services provided to consumers and small businesses. This article documents the “return to retail” in the U.S. banking industry and offers some insight into why the...