While there is no apparent reason for loan spreads to cluster at certain numbers, we find that around 70% of bank loans have round-yard spreads (i.e., multiples of 25 basis points). We hypothesize that dominant banks implicitly collude by using the round-yards as focal pricing points when...

This study proposes a political interference hypothesis to explain how political considerations depress the performance of government banks. We define political interference as a situation in which government bank executives are replaced within 12months after the country’s major elections...

Written by a distinguished group of Asian social scientists, this study summarizes and synthesizes the economic impacts of the crisis on individual countries and their policy response since 2008, and in particular carefully scrutinizes the immediate and remote causes of the crisis. It not only...

Given the worldwide economic importance of bank loan financing, we empirically investigate the roles of borrowers’ ownership and board structure in bank loan terms through a comprehensive dataset, which includes the complete history of individual bank loan contracts for firms publicly listed...

This article examines the relationship between political and business connections (PBCs) and firms' financial constraints. We proxy a firm's PBCs by whether or not the firm's CEO should hold a directorship in major trade organizations. Using an endogenous switching regression model, we find that...

In this study, we reinvestigate the question of whether government banks are inferior to private banks. We use cross country data from 1993 to 2007 to trace the different types of government banks. These types comprise banks that acquire distressed banks, normal banks, or no banks at all....