Recent empirical findings by Elsas (2005) and Degryse and Ongena (2007) document a U-shaped effect of market concentration on relationship lending whichvcannot be easily accommodated to the investment and strategic theory of relationship lending. In this paper, we show that this non-monotonicity...

The history of debt relief is now particularly long, the associated costs are soaring and the outcomes are at least uncertain. This paper reviews and provides new evidence on the effects of recent debt relief programs on different macroeconomic indicators in developing countries, focusing on the...

In this paper we study the relevance of the gender of the contracting parties involved in lending. We show that female entrepreneurs face tighter access to credit, even though they do not pay higher interest rates. The effect is independent of the information available about the borrower and...

We test the hypothesis that the identity of the owner affects firm ability to seize market opportunities differently according to the firm's actual vs. "optimal" size (size gap). By grouping firms in size clusters having a similar probability of adopting a size-adjusting strategy (growth or...

This paper examines government policies aimed at rescuing banks from the effects of the great financial crisis of 2007-2009. To delimit the scope of the analysis, we concentrate on the fiscal side of interventions and ignore, by design, the monetary policy reaction to the crisis. The policy...

In a recent study, Chami et al. (2003) suggested that remittances can have a negative impact on;economic growth of the receiving country by diminishing the work effort of the migrants' relatives.;Subsequently, Giuliano and Ruiz-Arranz (2009) found that this moral hazard effect emerges only;when...

For many countries, remittance behaviour by migrants is an important component of their overall international financial flows. To date, the empirical literature has analysed the propensity to remit as a function of migrants' socio-economic characteristics. However, no studies have fully...

In many countries, Mutual Loan-Guarantee Societies (MLGSs) are assuming ever-increasing importance for small business lending. In this paper we provide a theory to rationalise the raison d'^etre of MLGSs. The basic intuition is that the foundation for MLGSs lies in the inefficiencies created by...

We study the effects of the interplay between banking deregulation and corporate governance on the lending behavior of savings banks in Spain. The removal of branching barriers that constrained these banks has led to a nationwide expansion, increasing the number of their branches and their...

Previous research suggests that loan officers play a critical role in relationship lending by producing soft information about SMEs. For the first time, we empirically confirm this hypothesis. We also examine whether the role of loan officers differs from small to large banks as predicted by...