This paper analyzes how differences in legal origin, judicial efficiency, and investor protection affect firm leverage and earnings volatility across developing countries. Using a large number of developing countries, four main findings are highlighted. First, firms in civil legal origin...

This paper provides new evidence on the role of IMF programs in stimulating private sector investments. Using detailed firm-level data on tangible fixed assets and a local projection methodology, we first estimate the dynamic response of firm investments to the approval of an IMF arrangement. We...

Concerns about excessive variability in bank risk weights have prompted their review byregulators. This paper provides prima facie evidence on the extent of risk weightheterogeneity across broad asset classes and by country of counterparty for major banks inthe European Union using internal...

We analyze the transmission of bank-specific liquidity shocks triggered by a credit rating downgrade through the lending channel. Using bank-level data for US Bank Holding Companies, we find that a credit rating downgrade is associated with an immediate and persistent decline in access to...

The paper investigates EU banks' profitability through the recent financial cycle using banklevelbalance sheet and income statement data. We find that banks that were more successfulat protecting their profits had a less pronounced deterioration in loan quality and a largerimprovement in cost...

Financial crises result in price and quantity rationing of otherwise creditworthy business borrowers, but little is known about the relative severity of these two types of rationing, which borrowers are rationed most, and the roles of foreign and domestic banks. Using a dataset from 50 countries...