This paper presents recent trends in government and foreign bank ownership across countries and summarizes the evidence regarding the implications of bank ownership structure for bank performance and competition, financial stability, and access to finance. The evidence reviewed suggests that...

This paper presents recent trends in bank ownership across countries and summarizes the evidence regarding the implications of bank ownership structure for bank performance and competition, financial stability, and access to finance. The evidence reviewed suggests that foreign-owned banks are...

This paper analyzes the impact of introducing credit information-sharing systems on firms' access to finance. The analysis uses multi-year, firm-level surveys for 63 countries covering more than 75,000 firms over the period 2002-13. The results reveal that credit bureau reforms, but not credit...

Information from 209 banks in 62 countries is used to develop new indicators of barriers to banking services around the world, show their correlation with measures of outreach, and explore their association with bank and country characteristics suggested by theory as potential determinants....

We introduce a new comprehensive announcement-level database tracking the extraordinary fiscal, monetary, prudential, and other policies that countries adopted in response to Covid-19. The database provides detailed information, including sizes where available, for 28 granular policies adopted...

The COVID-19 pandemic could result in large government interventions in the banking industry. To shed light on the possible consequences on market power, we rely on the experience of the global financial crisis and exploit granular data on government interventions in more than 800 banks across...

Using a data set covering about 277,000 firms across 79 countries over the period 2004-11, this paper examines the evolution of firms' capital structure during the global financial crisis and its aftermath in 2010-11. The study finds that firm leverage and debt maturity declined in advanced...