Gender, credit, and firm outcomes.

Small and micro-enterprises are usually majority-owned by entrepreneurs. Using a unique sample of loan applications from such firms, we study the role of owners’ gender in bank credit decisions and post-credit-decision firm outcomes. We find that, ceteris paribus, female entrepreneurs are more prudent loan applicants than are males because they are less likely to apply for credit or to default after loan origination. The relatively more aggressive behavior of male applicants pays off, however, in terms of higher average firm performance after loan origination

"What's the Use of Having a Reputation If You Can't Ruin It Every Now and Then?" Regulatory Enforcement Actions on Banks and the Structure of Loan Syndicates

A decrease in the reputation of a loan syndicate's lead arranger, caused by a regulatory enforcement action for non-compliance with laws and regulations, disincentivizes potential syndicate participants from co-financing the loan. We formally argue that in such cases, the lead arranger must increase his share of the loan in order to make the loan sufficiently attractive to potential participants. We provide strong empirical evidence to support our theoretical argument, using the full sample of enforcement actions enacted on U.S. banks from 2000 through 2010 as well as syndicated loan-level data

Environmental awareness, consumption, and labor supply: Empirical evidence from household survey data

What is the effect of environmental awareness on the households’ consumption of polluting goods and labor supply decisions? We answer this question using household survey data from the United States and measuring environmental awareness with the decision to make environmental donations. We find that environmental awareness has a negative and economically significant effect on labor supply. The respective impact on the consumption of polluting goods is also negative, but less robust in terms of statistical significance. Our results highlight the importance of understanding the foundations of household behavior related to environmental quality. Indeed, environmentally aware households are willing to tradeoff work hours with improved environmental quality and less so to change their consumption habits

Relative effective taxation and income inequality: Evidence from OECD countries

Using a panel data set of effective tax rates that are directly comparable across OECD countries and over time, we investigate the redistributive effect of labour, consumption and capital tax rates. We show that what matters from the point of view of redistribution is the tax mix rather than the tax rates in isolation of the rest. We also find that as countries become more economically developed, and thus institutionally stronger, the adverse effects of relative tax rates on income equality diminish

Who lends to riskier and lower-profitability firms? Evidence from the syndicated loan market

This paper exploits a unique data set on bank–firm relationships based on syndicated loan deals to examine the effect of banks’ credit risk and capital on firms’ risk and performance. Our data set is a multilevel cross-section, which essentially allows controlling for all bank and firm characteristics through respective fixed effects, thus avoiding concerns regarding omitted variables. We find that banks with higher credit risk are associated with more risky firms, with lower profitability and market value. In turn, we find that banks with higher risk-weighted capital ratios lend to riskier firms with less market value. Our results are indicative of a strong adverse selection mechanism and highlight the need to monitor the risky banks more closely, especially as we consider large and influential syndicated loan deals

Relative effective taxation and income inequality: Evidence from OECD countries

Using a panel data set of effective tax rates that are directly comparable across OECD countries and over time, we investigate the redistributive effect of labour, consumption and capital tax rates. We show that what matters from the point of view of redistribution is the tax mix rather than the tax rates in isolation of the rest. We also find that as countries become more economically developed, and thus institutionally stronger, the adverse effects of relative tax rates on income equality diminish

Efficiency of goverment policy during the COVID-19 pandemic

International audienceWe introduce country-month indices of government policy in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Our indices cover 81 countries and the period from May 2020 to November 2021. Our framework assumes that governments impose stringent policies (listed in the Oxford COVID-19 Containment and Health Index) with the single goal of saving lives. We find that positive and significant correlates of our new indices are..