Using both market-based and annual report-based approaches to measure lending specialization for a broad cross-section of banks and countries over the period 2002 to 2011, this paper is the first to empirically gauge the relationship between bank lending specialization and bank performance and...

Using data from a survey of 91 banks in 45 countries, the authors characterize bank financing to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) around the world. They find that banks perceive the SME segment to be highly profitable, but perceive macroeconomic instability in developing countries and...

While the theoretical and empirical finance literature has focused almost exclusively on enterprise credit, about half of credit extended by banks to the private sector in a sample of 45 developing and developed countries is to households. The share of household credit in total credit increases...

Analysis of data from emerging economies suggests that, unless properly managed, the introduction of higher minimum bank capital requirements may well induce an aggregate slowdown or contraction of bank credit in these economies

We test for emerging economies the hypothesis — previously verified for G-10 countries only — that the enforcement of bank capital asset requirements (CARs) exerts a detrimental effect on the supply of credit. The econometric analysis on individual bank data suggests three main results....