Theoretical and empirical work suggests that commercial loan officers play a critical role in relationship lending by producing soft information about their SME borrowers. We test whether loan officers in the Japanese SME loan market perform this role in a manner that is consistent with the...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the direct and indirect effects of automated teller machines (ATMs) on the performance and scope economies of the Japanese financial institutions. Design/methodology/approach Stochastic frontier approach is adopted to estimate banks’...

In the fall of 1998, two important financial regulatory reform acts were passed in Japan. The first of these acts, the Financial Recovery Act, created a bridge bank scheme and provided funds for the resolution of failed banks. The second act, the Rapid Revitalization Act, provided funds for the...

We examine the determinants of Japanese regional bank decisions concerning pricing unrealized losses or gains to market. We also examine the impact of these decisions on the intensity of depositor discipline, in the form of the sensitivity of deposit growth to bank financial conditions. To...

In this paper, to analyze the similarities and differences between the regional finance of Japan and South Korea (hereinafter, “Korea”), we compared questionnaires to small to midsize companies located in Korea’s Daegu/Gyeongbuk region with questionnaires to small to midsize companies...