To analyze whether the occurrence of elections affects access to credit for firms, we perform an investigation using firm-level data covering 44 developed and developing countries. The results show that elections impair access to credit. Specifically, firms are more credit-constrained in...

A cornerstone of the Chinese growth model has been the opening up of its economy to private competition. Some observers claim that China has changed course since joining the WTO by increasingly promoting ‘state capitalism’, the large State Owned Enterprises, thereby compromising a growth...

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...

Causality between the ratio of domestic private credit to GDP and growth in real GDP per capita is investigated in a country-by-country time-series framework for 24 OECD economies over the period 1980–2013. The proposed threefold methodology to test for causal linkages integrates (i)...

This study investigates the impact of foreign bank penetration on firm entry in Central and Eastern Europe. Acquisition of domestic banks by foreign investors has lowered rates of firm creation, decreased the average size of entrants, and increased firm exit in industries with greater...

This study investigates the impact of foreign bank penetration on firm entry in Central and Eastern Europe. Acquisition of domestic banks by foreign investors has lowered rates of firm creation, decreased the average size of entrants, and increased firm exit in industries with greater...

We introduce endogenous time preference via investment in patience (farsightedness) in an overlapping generations growth model to study development traps.There is no investment in patience, if the economy is very poor, while if it is wealthy enough there is always such investment.We explore the...

This paper investigates the importance of factor endowment vis-à-vis institutions in explaining the locational choice of foreign investors during the 1990s.Using dynamic panel estimation on data for transition economies, we find that low labour costs, bureaucratic efficiency ("institutions"),...

There have been profound changes in both political and economic institutions in China over the last twenty years.Moreover, the pace of transition has led to variation across the country in the level of development.In this paper, we use panel data for the Chinese provinces to study the role of...

Using a database from post-communist, pre-deposit-insurance Russia, we demonstrate the presence of quantity-based sanctioning of weaker banks by both firms and households, particularly after the financial crisis of 1998.Evidence for the standard form of price discipline, however, is notably...