We study 1,400 UK syndicated loans, together with the financial history of the lead bank andthe borrowing firm. We interpret abnormal equity returns around loan announcements as thevalue of the lending relationship to the firm. We find that: (i) Consistent with previousevidence, the value of...

Distance, as a proxy for trade barriers, is found in many studies to matter even for weightless cross-border financial investments and lending, possibly due to the presence of information asymmetries. Its importance is tested in this paper using exports of all five broad categories of the...

The recent financial crisis highlighted that balance sheet exposures can be a major shock transmission channel. Using sectoral accounts data in combination with data from the Coordinated Portfolio Investment Survey, International Investment Position, and BIS this paper estimates bilateral...

We study whether clarity of central bank inflation reports affects return volatility in financial markets. We measure clarity of reports by the Czech National Bank, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, and Sveriges Riksbank using the Flesch-Kincaid grade level, a standard readability...

The latest advancement in financial technology has posed unprecedented challenges for incumbent banks. This paper analyzes the implications of these challenges on bank competitveness, and explores the factors that could support digital advancement in banks. The analysis shows that the...

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in an unprecedented shock to firms with adverse consequences for existing productive capacities. At the same time, digitalization has increasingly been touted as a key pathway for mitigating economic losses from the pandemic, and we expect firms facing digital...

How did expectations of the outcome of the United Kingdom's (UK) referendum on European Union (EU) membership in 2016 affect prices in financial markets? We study this using high frequency data from betting and financial markets. We find that a one percentage point increase in the probability of...

This paper examines the determinants of net interest margins in four regional blocks in Sub-Saharan Africa and one comparator block in the Eastern Caribbean. Using bank-level data, we find that countries with a high level of operating costs, a high ratio of equity to total assets and high...

This paper studies whether bank ownership influenced lending behavior during the COVID-19 shock. It finds that, similar to previous episodes of financial distress, foreign banks appear to have played a shock-transmitting role, as there was a sharp slowdown in lending by foreign banks’...

Changes in the structure of the U.S. Treasury market over recent years may have increased risks to financial stability. Traditional market makers have changed their liquidity provision by increasingly switching from risk warehousing to risk distribution, and a new breed of market maker has...