Although the role of loan officers in the credit process has been extensively discussed in the literature, their individual prejudices have been neglected. The literature on decision making relies on the assumption that all loan officers perceive and use information similarly, regardless of...

Literature points out that women are more discouraged compared to their male counterparts to apply for a loan. However, little is known about the influence exerted by a feminine business environment for women-led firms. Using a dataset of 8,966 firms from 96 countries, we find that...

This study shows that female role model encourages women-led firms to apply for a credit. Employing a sample of of 29,157 firms from 112 countries between 2009 and 2020, our results indicate that the exposure to a female political leader offsets the likelihood for woman-led firms to be...

This study investigates the role of religiousness - defined as a multidimensional set of religious beliefs, feelings, knowledge, and practice - on the likelihood for individuals to be entrepreneurs. We construct precise measures of both religiousness and entrepreneurship from the 2017 World...

Trust towards banks plays a central role in theoretical literature. Diamond and Dybvig (J Polit Econ 91:401–419, 1983) argue that in a trustworthy environment banks can easily collect deposit foster banking activity and asset transformation. Diamond and Rajan (J Polit Econ 109:287–327, 2001)...

Do creditor rights influence the use of relationship lending? With data from EFIGE, gathered during a 2010 survey spanning seven European countries, this article addresses this question. First, it determines that banks and firms are more willing to implement relationship lending technology in...

Can relationship-lending technology be used to overcome discrimination, as the Allport's (1954) contact hypothesis suggests? Or should minorities stay away from the bank? Using a sample of SMEs from the Survey of Small Business Finances 2003, this article shows that though relationship-lending...

For the past 20 years, scholars have extensively discussed the impact of banking competition on the choice between transactional and relationship lending technologies, both empirically and theoretically, but have not yet come to a resolution. This study addresses this question using a new...

Does a women-friendly legal environment help women to overcome discrimination in credit markets? By examining antidiscrimination laws and their implications for women-led businesses' access to credit in 124 countries, the current study differentiates an effect on discouragement (i.e., not asking...

This article explores the link between the subprime crisis and the European sovereign debt crisis. Using a panel data approach, we estimate the impact of the different government interventions aimed at rescuing financial institutions on the significant increase of the costs of public debts as...