The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of targeted financial development on aggregate outcomes, in particular aggregate productivity. The development of the both the bond market and the banking sector can increase aggregate productivity through intra-industry reallocation of...

This study investigates how heterogeneous firms choose their lenders when they raise external finance for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and how the choice of financing structure affects FDI activities. We establish an asymmetric information model to analyze why certain firms use private bank...

This article is a survey of the covered bond market with a focus on recent developments in the U.S. Covered bonds are debt obligations secured by a pool of assets, usually consisting of residential mortgages or other public debt. The covered bond asset pool is ring-fenced, dynamically managed,...

The paper analyses how close relationships to banks influence a firm's choice of financing its debt through publicly marketed bonds or bank loans. It is shown that large Japanese firms use less bank debt, if banks own shares in the firm or bank employees are members of the firm's board. This...