A recent string of theoretical papers highlights the importance of geographical distance in explaining pricing and availability of loans to small firms.Lenders located in the vicinity of small firms have significantly lower monitoring and transaction costs, and hence considerable market power if...

Collateral is one of the most important features of a debt contract. A substantial theoretical literature motivates the use of collateral as a means to alleviate ex-ante and ex-post information asymmetries between borrowers and lenders and the incidence of credit rationing. Through its seniority...

This paper provides the first empirical evidence on how home-country regulation and supervision affects bank risk-tailing in host-country markets. We analyze lending by 136 banks to 8,253 firms in 1,513 different localities across 13 countries. We find strong evidence that laxer regulatory...

We study the decision entrepreneurs face in financing multiple and independent projects.If strategic defaults are assessed likely to occur, for example if judicial efficiency is low, entrepreneurs delay projects to seek sequential financing from a relationship lender.Such commitment-type...

Abstract: We compare default rates on conventional and Islamic loans using a comprehensive monthly dataset from Pakistan that follows more than 150,000 loans over the period 2006:04 to 2008:12. We find robust evidence that the default rate on Islamic loans is less than half the default rate on...

Recent theoretical models argue that a bank's organizational structure reflects its lending technology.A hierarchically organized bank will employ mainly hard information, whereas a decentralized bank will rely more on soft information.We investigate theoretically and empirically how bank...

Abstract: Banking competition may enhance or hinder the financing of small and medium enterprises. Using a survey on the financing of such enterprises in China, combined with detailed bank branch information, we investigate how concentration in local banking market affects the availability of...

We model the choice of loan currency in a framework which features a trade-off between lower cost of debt and the risk of firm-level distress costs. Under perfect information foreign currency funds come at a lower interest rate, all foreign currency earners as well as those local currency...

Abstract: 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...