We document the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on digital finance and fintech adoption and usage. Drawing on mobile application data from 71 countries, we estimate that the spread of COVID-19 and related government lockdowns led to between a 33.1 and 36.6 percent increase in the relative rate...

We study the effect of armed conflict on loan officers and their actual lending decisions. Following mortar shelling of Indian border areas in the state of Jammu & Kashmir, we document that after repeated incidences of shelling the loan rates set by the loan officers exponentially increase....