Using a sample from 38 economies, we examine the relation between bank regulators’ supervisory power and loan spreads. We find that loans issued by banks in economies with more powerful supervisors have higher spreads. The positive association is more pronounced when firms have lower credit...

Banks are important for mobilizing savings and then channeling those funds to productive investment projects. While providing these and other services that contribute to economic growth and development, banks take on various types of risks with the expectation that the return they receive will...

We analyze a principal-supervisor-two-agent hierarchy with soft information. The supervisor may be inefficient such that a noisy signal on the agents’ effort levels is observed. On one hand, the agents require risk premiums to work due to the noisy signal. On the other hand, the supervisor and...