The fast adoption of Western-style democracy and market economy principles as established by EU standards by many of the Eastern European "transformation countries" since the early 1990s should have raised cross-border lending by banks based in "old" EU member countries to clients resident in...

Theory suggests that the cross-border bank lending flow from rich countries to poor countries is facilitated when lending-related legal and social norms are shared and valued equally by both lenders and borrowers. According to this reasoning the fast adoption of Western-style democracy and...