Using a novel way to identify relationship and transaction banks, we study how banks' lending techniques affect funding to SMEs over the business cycle. For 21 countries we link the lending techniques that banks use in the direct vicinity of firms to these firms' credit constraints at two...

This paper examines how the absorption of talent into the financial sector affects the real sectors in the economy. Based on a sample of 13 countries observed over the period 1980-2005, I show that financial liberalization is associated with skill-upgrading in the financial sector. I exploit...

The U.S. banking sector has grown substantially since the 1970s and has become more skill-intensive over time. This paper exploits variation in banking deregulation across U.S. states between 1997 and 2008 to test whether the banking sector absorbs talent at the expense of the real sectors in...

The recent financial crisis has stimulated theoretical and empirical research on the propagation mechanisms underlying business cycles, in particular on the role of financial frictions. Many issues concerning the interactions between banking and monetary policy forced policy makers to rede.ne...