We use detailed survey data to document stark differences between West and East Ukraine when it comes to household attitudes toward market-based economies and democratic institutions. Along both of these dimensions, Eastern Ukrainians are decidedly less supportive of liberal systems. We also...

We use detailed survey data to document stark differences between West and East Ukraine when it comes to household attitudes toward market-based economies and democratic institutions. Along both of these dimensions, Eastern Ukrainians are decidedly less supportive of liberal systems. However, we...

To what extent was the credit contraction during the global financial crisis due to more intense screening and monitoring by banks? We address this question by analyzing changes in the structure of a large number of syndicated loans to private, non-financial corporations. We find an increase in...

After Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy in September 2008, cross-border bank lending contracted sharply. To explain the severity and variation in this contraction, we analyze detailed data on cross-border syndicated lending by 75 banks to 59 countries. We find that banks that had to write...

The global financial crisis and the related sharp reduction in cross-border credit have reignited the debate about the risks of financial globalization. We use loan-level data on lending by the largest international banks to their various countries of operation to examine how banks reduced...

We use detailed data on over 350 banks in emerging Europe to analyze how bank ownership and the Vienna Initiative impacted credit growth during the Great Recession. As part of the Vienna Initiative, western European banks signed country-specific commitment letters in which they pledged to...

We use data on the 48 largest multinational banking groups to compare the lending of their 199 foreign subsidiaries during the Great Recession with lending by a benchmark of 202 domestic banks. Contrary to earlier and more contained crises, parent banks were not a significant source of strength...

The global financial crisis has reignited the debate about the risks of financial globalization, in particular the international transmission of financial shocks. We use data on individual loans by the largest international banks to their various countries of operation to examine whether banks'...

This article reviews the origin and spread of the distressed debt problem in the transition region. We argue that while the crisis was triggered abroad, the current high level of distressed debt in various transition countries mainly reflects home-grown vulnerabilities. As in the West, the root...