Firm-Level Evidence of Shifts in the Supply of Credit

Using panel data of 68,800 small and large firms, I examine whether firms are subject to shifts in the supply of credit over the business cycle. Shifts in the supply of credit are identified by exploring how firms substitute between commitment credit - lines of credit - and non-commitment credit. I find that firms on average rely more on commitment credits when monetary policy is tight and when the financial health of banks is weaker. The results are consistent with a bank lending channel of monetary policy and with shifts in the supply of credit following deteriorations in banks' balance sheets

Institutional and Political Determinants of Private Participation in Infrastructure

We assembled a large panel of project-level technical and financial data and country-level economic, institutional, political, and governance variables to assess the determinants of private financing of infrastructure in emerging markets and developing economies. Controlling for economic characteristics, we find that overall private participation of infrastructure financing increases with freedom from corruption, rule of law, quality of regulations, and decreases with court disputes. We provide plausible explanations of deviations from this pattern when data is disaggregated at the sectoral level. We also found that legal systems-types of democracy or dictatorship-do not play a role in whether the private sector invests in infrastructure. Our results do not vary when controlling for income inequality and across quartiles of experience, country wealth, and wealth per capita. The study shows that upstream "enabling" institutions, policies, and regulations and sector economics need to be addressed simultaneously to facilitate private infrastructure investment financing