We investigate the effects of competition in the banking sector on the creation of firms in the non-financial sector, explicitly allowing for heterogeneous effects across borrowers characterized by different degrees of asymmetric information. We find evidence of a bellshaped relationship between...

We investigate the effects of competition in the financial sector on the creation of firms in the nonfinancial sector, explicitly allowing for heterogeneous effects across borrowers characterized by different degrees of asymmetric information. We find evidence of a bell-shaped relationship...

The two recessions that have hit Italy since the end of 2008 have raised the share of non-performing loans to businesses in banks� portfolios substantially. In this paper we evaluate to what extent the deterioration of credit quality was due not only to the decline in firms� sales...

This paper analyzes the relationship between the terms on bank loans and local crime rates, employing a sample of over 300,000 bank-firm relationships. Controlling for firm, market and bank characteristics the results show that where the crime rate is higher borrowers pay higher interest rates,...

A large literature on the effects of bank consolidation focuses on direct efficiency gains for participating banks and market power effects. The special nature of credit markets suggests that indirect informational effects for borrowers may be generated by bank consolidation. In particular,...

This paper investigates the empirical relationship between competition in the financial sector and the creation of firms in the non-financial sector. It presents new empirical evidence suggesting that competition in banking is more detrimental (or less favorable) to the emergence of new firms in...

Corporate governance theory predicts that leverage affects agency costs and thereby influences firm performance. We propose a new approach to test this theory using profit efficiency, or how close a firm's profits are to the benchmark of a best-practice firm facing the same exogenous conditions....

We estimate the impact of bank mergers and acquisitions (M&As) on outstanding credit, credit lines, and the sensitivity of investment to cash flow using a large sample of Italian corporate borrowers. We distinguish between firms that experienced relationship termination as a consequence of bank...