Stock markets play a key role in corporate financing in Asia. However, despite their increasing importance in terms of size and cross-border investment activity, the region’s markets are reputed to be more “idiosyncratic” and less reliant on economic and corporate fundamentals in their...

The monetary transmission mechanism in the euro area has been adversely affected by the recent crises. Using survey data on thousands of euro area firms, we study factors that affect the access to finance of SMEs. We find that changes in bank funding costs and borrower leverage matter for...

Easy global liquidity conditions, stronger risk appetite and a retrenchment in cross-border bank lending led to a surge in emerging market firms' bond issuance in international markets (what we term "The Bon(d)anza"). Using firm-level data for five large Latin American economies, we provide...

This paper examines alternative approaches to building sound financial structures in emerging market economies. The foremost task is to resolve the bad loan problem and to recapitalize insolvent state banks. By restoring an incentive for banks to price accurately the risks of new lending, this...

The simultaneous unwinding of leveraged positions can trigger financial market turbulence. Although balance-sheet measures of leverage are available, it is useful to construct a measure of leverage that incorporates both on- and off-balance-sheet activities. This paper provides measures of...

Under alternative assumptions on the likely developments in external financing of PCPE transition, and based on a multi-country, forward-looking model that includes a simplified PCPE block, we simulate the response of PCPEs to a transfer of capital from the industrial countries, and assess the...

The paper investigates how changes in industries'' funding costs affect total factor productivity (TFP) growth. Based on panel regressions using 31 U.S. and Canadian industries between 1991 and 2007, and using industries'' dependence on external funding as an identification mechanism, we show...

We examine how the cost of corporate credit varies around fiscal consolidations aimed at reducing government debt. Using a new dataset on fiscal consolidations and syndicated corporate loan data, we find that loan spreads increase with fiscal consolidations, especially for small firms, domestic...