This study examines how bank ownership influenced the credit supply during the recent financial crisis in Russia, where the banking sector consists of a mix of state-controlled banks, foreign-owned banks, and domestic private banks. To estimate credit supply changes, we employ an exhaustive...

This study examines how bank ownership influenced the credit supply during the recent financial crisis in Russia, where the banking sector consists of a mix of state-controlled banks, foreign-owned banks, and domestic private banks. To estimate credit supply changes, we employ an exhaustive...

The accession negotiations of Belarus to the WTO are unusual since, due to its obligations in the Eurasian Economic Union, WTO accession is not expected to impact its tariffs or formerly substantial trade distorting agricultural subsidies. Nonetheless, we estimate that WTO accession will...

How do corruption and the state apparatus interact, and how are they connected to the political and economic dimensions of state capacity? Motivated by historians' analysis of powerful empires, we build a model that emphasizes the corrosive effect of corruption on state power. Under general...

Market economy models differ in the degree of the power of the government vis-à-vis the market in the economy. Under the classications set forth by Glaeser and Shleifer (2002, 2003), and Djankov et al. (2003), these market models range from those emphasizing low government intervention in the...

Why are some lobby groups less benign in their external effects than others? Nearly three decades ago, Mancur Olson (1982) proposed that less-encompassing lobby groups with their constituents collectively representing a narrow range of sectors are more apt to seek the types of subsidies,...

Russia has witnessed a high number of bank failures over the last two decades. Using monthly data for 2002-2020, spanning four election cycles, we test the hypothesis that bank failures are less likely before presidential elections. We find that bank failures are less likely to occur in the...

In this paper, we examine how a trade conflict's impact on the real economy can be amplified by financial intermediaries. After the Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize Committee awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, China in practice banned imports of Norwegian salmon. The...

This paper examines the effect of executive board gender diversity on the relationship between economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and bank liquidity hoarding (LH). We focus on the Russian banking sector, which, relative to most of the world, has a high share of women on bank executive boards....

We examine the effect of regional favoritism on the access of firms to credit. Using firm-level data on a large sample of 29,000 firms covering 47 countries, we investigate the hypothesis that firms in the birth regions of national political leaders have better access to credit. Our evidence...