We investigate whether state-to-state political ties with a global superpower affects the pricing of international syndicated bank loans. We find statistically and economically significant effects of stronger state political ties with the United States, arguably the most dominant global...

This paper investigates the relative importance of microfinance institutions (MFIs) at both the macro (financial development, economic growth, income inequality, and poverty) and micro levels (efficiency of traditional commercial banks). We observe a significant impact on most of the fronts....

Labor is among the most crucial factors of production that maintain a firm’s competitiveness. Given its economic importance, drivers of firms’ labor investment policy have gained increasing attention in the financial economics literature. This study investigates the relation between stock...

This paper examines the economic effects of a firm's approach to developing and maintaining political connections. Specifically, we investigate whether lenders favor transactional connection as opposed to relational connection. By tracing firms in a politically volatile emerging democracy in...

Reduced exchange rate volatility and higher and less heterogeneous quality of institutional rules and macroeconomic policies are two of the main (anticipated and concurring) effects expected from a currency union. In this paper we measure the magnitude of these two effects on the Euro area...

In this paper, we examine the impact of female Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) on corporate innovation. We find that firms with female CTOs are more innovative (as captured by both patent counts and patent citations) than firms with male CTOs. This effect is more pronounced for firms with a...

We study the market performance of Chinese companies listed in the U.S. stock exchanges using machine learning methods. Predicting the market performance of U.S. listed Chinese firms is a challenging task due to the scarcity of data and the large set of unknown predictors involved in the...

Measuring company culture in four types (collaborate, control, compete, and create) using 10-K text, we examine the role of culture in firm stability. We find that firms with higher controlling culture fared significantly better during the 2008-09 crisis. The results are robust to using...

We examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on CDS spreads of companies around the world. We find that the pandemic-induced increases in corporate CDS spreads are concentrated in firms with higher leverage, non-investment-grade rating, lower profitability, and higher stock volatility. Further...

This paper examines the pricing of global syndicated loans during the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that loan spreads rise by over 11 basis points in response to a one standard deviation increase the lender’s exposure to COVID-19 and over 5 basis points for an equivalent increase in the...