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...

We exploit the quasi-random assignment of borrowers to loan officers using data from a large Albanian lender to show that own-gender preferences affect both credit supply and demand. Borrowers matched to officers of the opposite sex are less likely to return for a second loan. The effect is...

We analyze gender differences associated with loan officer performance. Using a unique data set for a commercial bank over the period 1996 to 2006, we find that loans screened and monitored by female loan officers show a statistically and economically significant lower likelihood to turn...

Using data for 91 large banks from 45 countries, this paper finds few differences in the extent, type, and pricing of SME loans across foreign, private, and government-owned banks, even though different bank ownership types apply different lending technologies and have different organizational...

Exploiting geographic variation in the exposure of U.S. banks to COVID-19 and lockdown policies we find that banks more exposed to pandemic and lockdown policies show an increase in loss provisions and non-performing loans. While we observe an increase in corporate, especially small business,...