Consolidation of the banking industry is shifting assets into larger institutions that often operate in many nations. Large international financial institutions are geared toward serving large wholesale customers. How does this affect the banking system's ability to lend to informationally...

Two data sets are used to study how country and firm characteristics affected firms' financial constraints and their likelihood of survival during the early phase of the recent global financial crisis in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, a region that was especially hard hit. The first data...

In recent years foreign bank participation has increased tremendously in Latin America. Some observers argue that foreign bank entry will benefit Latin American banking systems by reducing the volatility of loans and deposits and increasing efficiency. Others are concerned that foreign banks...

Previous empirical analyses have found that bank privatizations are more successful when the government fully relinquishes control, when the bank is privatized to a strategic investor, and when foreign-owned banks are allowed to participate in the bidding. The privatization of Uganda Commercial...

Based on results from country case studies, many researchers have claimed that political constraints affect bank privatization transactions, which in turn affect the post-privatization performance of the banking sector. But no study has either econometrically tested how political constraints...

In recent years, foreign bank participation has increased tremendously in several developing countries. In Argentina, Chile, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, for example, more than fifty percent of banking assets are now in foreign-controlled banks. In Asia, Africa, The Middle East, and...

Existing evidence on the effect of foreign bank penetration on lending to small and medium-size enterprises is ambiguous. Case studies of developing countries show that foreign banks lend less to such firms than domestic banks do. But cross-country studies find that foreign bank entry fosters...

Factoring is a form of asset-based finance where the credit is extended based on the value of the borrower's accounts receivable. In recent years factoring has experienced phenomenal growth and has become an important source of financing-especially short-term working capital-for small and...

The authors formulate and test hypotheses about the role of bank ownership types-foreign, state-owned, and private domestic banks-in banking relationships, using data from India. The empirical results are consistent with all of their hypotheses with regard to foreign banks. These banks tend to...

Under the traditional "competition-fragility" view, more bank competition erodes market power, decreases profit margins, and results in reduced franchise value that encourages bank risk taking. Under the alternative "competition-stability" view, more market power in the loan market may result in...