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We examine the contractual implications of a lender’s trust for corporate loans. We measure how trusting a lender is using the average trust attitude in the chief executive officer’s ancestral country of origin. We find that banks with trusting CEOs charge lower interest rates in U.S. syndicated loans. This effect is identified within existing lender–borrower relationships and similar types of loans. Further analyses indicate that trust reduces the cost of credit by boosting the perceived credibility of borrower information and by mitigating contracting problems. We corroborate our findings by conducting a survey of loan officers with experience in loan syndication. This paper was accepted by Gustavo Manso, finance. Supplemental Material: The internet appendix and data are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.4371 .

Doktora Tezi, Tashîhu’l-ukûd, genel itibariyle muâmelât akitlerinin mümkün olduğu kadar geçerli kabul edilmesini ifade eden bir kavramdır. Söz konusu kavram doktora çalışmamızda Hanefi mazhebi bağlamında ve mâlî muâmelât alanı özelinde ele alınmıştır. Tashîhu’l-ukûd’un Hanefi mezhebinde genişçe kabul gören bir yaklaşım biçimi olduğu temellendirilmiş ve bu yaklaşımın pratiğe yansıması olan tashih yöntemleri üzerinde durulmuştur. Çalışmamız bir giriş ve dört bölümden oluşmaktadır. Giriş kısmında konumuzun fıkıh ilmindeki yeri, sınırlandırılması, çalışmanın önemi ve amaçları ile araştırmanın kaynakları incelenmiştir. Birinci bölümde kavramsal çerçeve üzerinde durulmuş, Hanefi fıkıh kaynaklarında yer alan tashihle ilgili ifade kalıpları incelenmiş ve genel bir kavramsal analiz yapılmıştır. İkinci bölümde tashîhu’l-ukûd teorisinin mahiyeti, özellikleri ve genel şartları ortaya konmuş, üçüncü bölümde ise tashîh düşüncesinin tarihi arka planı incelenmiştir. Çalışmamızın son bölümünde ise fürû fıkıh örneklerinden hareketle tespit edilen dört yöntemin araştırılmasına yer verilmiştir. Ayrıca her yöntemin sonunda ilgili yöntem vasıtasıyla sıhhate yorumlanabilecek birtakım güncel problem örneklerine de kısaca yer verilmiştir., Taṣḥīḥ al-‘uqūd is a concept that generally refers to the rectification of contracts as much as possible. In our doctorate dissertation, the term in question was analyzed in the context of Ḥanafī law school within the scope of financial transactions. It is substantiated that taṣḥīḥ al-‘uqūd is a widely accepted approach amongst Ḥanafite scholars. Likewise, taṣḥīḥ methods, which are the practical reflections of the theory, are examined. The study consists of an introduction part and four chapters. In the introduction section, place of the subject in the fiqh science, its limitations, the importance and purposes of the study, and the sources of the research are examined. In the first chapter, the conceptual framework was focused on, types of expressions related to the taṣḥīḥ contained in the Ḥanafī fiqh sources were studied, and a general terminological analysis was carried out. In the second part, the nature, characteristics, and general terms and clauses of the theory are revealed. In the third part, the historical background of taṣḥīḥ al-‘uqūd thought is investigated. Lastly, in the fourth chapter of our study, four methods determined based on the examples of fiqh examples were presented. In addition, at the end of each method, a number of current problem examples that can be rectificated by means of the relevant methods are briefly given.

In the financial economics literature debt contracts provide efficient solutions for addressing managerial moral hazard problems. We analyze a model with multiple projects where the manager obtains private information about their quality after the contract with investors is agreed. The likelihood of success of each project depends on both its quality and the level of effort exerted on it by the manager. We find that, depending on the distribution of the quality shock, the optimal financial contract can be either debt or equity.

A través del presente trabajo queremos efectuar un estudio de los préstamos bancarios y la protección que los consumidores tienen en este ámbito. Para ello debemos comenzar en estudiar qué es el dinero, en que consiste la economía financiera, los contratos financieros, qué son los mercados financieros y su regulación, qué es la actividad crediticia y los contratos bancarios (activos y pasivos). Además, analizaremos en profundidad los préstamos mercantiles y los préstamos bancarios y sus modalidades. También señalaremos los principales problemas de los préstamos bancarios. Y finalizaremos con el estudio de la protección de los consumidores en el ámbito de los préstamos bancarios., Through this work we want to carry out a study of bank loans and the protection that consumers have in this area. To do this we must begin to study what is money, which is the financial economy, financial contracts, what are the financial markets and their regulation, what is the credit activity and banking contracts (assets and liabilities). In addition, we will analyze in depth commercial loans and bank loans and their modalities. We will also indicate the main problems of bank loans. And we will finish with the study of consumer protection in the field of bank loans., Máster Universitario en Acceso a la Profesión de Abogado (M155)

A buyout deal involves several parties, including private equity firms, the target company, and lending banks. All these parties are legally connected by contractual arrangements, and covenants among all interest parties are important. However, a comprehensive study on designing covenants among parties in a buyout deal to achieve commitment and avoid risk in closing a deal is seldom seen in current literature. By investigating one of the world's largest buyout deals – the acquisition of Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), this paper not only probes into the design of contracts and covenant, but also provides several managerial implications. This paper concludes that well-designed covenants in buy-out deals can appropriately align all participants’ diversified interests. First Publish Online: 23 Dec 2015

We demonstrate how an incumbent producer of commodities can use cash-settled derivatives contracts to deter entry and extract rents from a potential competitor. By selling more derivatives than total demand, the producer commits to low prices and forces the entrant to price low upon entry. By setting a high upfront derivatives price, the producer can extract the consumer's gains from those low prices. This exclusionary scheme becomes more difficult when the buyer becomes more risk averse and with multiple buyers.

Previous literature presented a predation model based on agency problems in financial contracting. In that model, predation reduced prey’s cash flow through breaking the relationship between the prey and its investors as the prey is financially constrained. This paper presents a different model in which both the predator and the prey are financially constrained and in need of external funding. The only dissimilarity between the predator and the prey is their corresponding level of bargaining power in financial contracting over their respective investors. The asymmetry of bargaining power is the unique source of predatory behavior. Financial contract between firm with less bargaining power (prey) and its investor can deter predation if the predator cannot renegotiate the contract with its own investor. If renegotiation is available for the predator, no financial contract can successfully deter predation.

The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) has maintained its momentum in regulation and supervision in the face of exceptional growth in scale and increasing complexity of the banking system. Equally, the CBRC has risen to the demands of the international regulatory reform agenda, delivering timely revisions to its body of regulations and maturing its supervisory practices through investing in essential new skills, enhancing methodologies, and broadening its interactions with the industry. In this context, the clarity of supervisory requirements and expectations communicated to the industry is a strength of the CBRC. Recent organizational reforms, in 2015, building on other internal reforms, will serve the CBRC well in delivering its supervisory mandate. While pursuit of financial stability is recognized as fundamentally important, concerns must be acknowledged as to whether the CBRC would, in practice, always be able to act on its primary, stability, objective, especially if government policies, whether focused growth and expansion, or social protection, conflicted with prudential considerations. The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) has achieved a high degree of compliance with the Basel Core Principles for Effective Banking Supervision (BCPs). Notwithstanding the revision to the BCP methodology, which raised the standards expected of supervisory authorities, the CBRC has demonstrated progress in almost all areas. Nevertheless, further maturing is needed, and taken together the recommendations of this report seek to support the CBRC in developing deeper and more comprehensive diagnostic capabilities, which ought to facilitate early, effective and preventative actions as necessary. It is essential that the CBRC’s achievements in recent years are consolidated as new challenges and complexities in the system will continue to emerge. In particular, it is essential that the CBRC obtain the resources to expand its range and depth of skills before developments in the industry leave it unable to maintain meaningful oversight and authority, not least of the four Global Systemically Important Banks (GSIBs). Building on the supervisory vision expressed in prestige CBRC publications such as the Annual Report, a detailed forward strategy for supervision, covering three to five years, would serve as a vehicle for the CBRC to articulate its case for resources.

Ouvrage collectif sous la direction de M.-L Demeester et V. Mercier.; International audience; Le mouvement de financiarisation qui a touché bon nombre d’activités économiques n’a pas épargné le secteur agricole. Cette financiarisation s’est traduite par une utilisation importante des instruments financiers à terme. Quelle que soit la position adoptée face à ces instruments pour le secteur agricole, l’étude des mécanismes mis en jeu montre que leur mise en oeuvre s’accompagne d’un risque de voir se développer une spéculation non maîtrisée qui peut avoir un impact négatif non seulement sur l’économie agricole mais aussi sur la sécurité alimentaire, à l’échelle nationale et internationale. La meilleure preuve est que les autorités communautaires, conscientes de l’existence d’un tel risque, ont pris des mesures visant à encadrer davantage ces instruments. Il reste à savoir si elles seront efficaces.

This project was funded via a SEEK grant provided by the Centre for European Economic Research. We investigate the relationship between corporate and country sustainability on the cost of bank loans. We look into 470 loan agreements signed between 2005 and 2012 with borrowers based in 28 different countries across the world and operating in all major industries. Our principal findings reveal that country sustainability, relating to both social and environmental frameworks, has a statistically and economically impactful effect on direct financing of economic activity. An increase of one unit in a country's sustainability score is associated with an average decrease in the cost of debt by 64 basis points. Our international analysis shows that the environmental dimension of a country's institutional framework is approximately twice as impactful as the social dimension, when it comes to determining the cost of corporate loans. On the other hand, we find no conclusive evidence that firm-level sustainability influences the interest rates charged to borrowing firms by banks. Our main findings survive a battery of robustness tests and additional analyses concerning subsamples, alternative sustainability metrics and the effects of financial crisis. Preprint

This paper is the outcome of a related broader project, exploring the explanatory power of the Legal Theory of Finance, which proposes a new institution-based analytical framework for the analysis of phenomena of financial markets. One of its most important theoretical assumptions, the legal construction of financial markets, is highlighted by the example of the private creation of money by structured finance products in this paper. Further implications can then be shown referring to pari passu clauses and collective action clauses, which are both exhibit a differential application of these legal rules according to the hierarchical status of the respective market participant, and can therefore endanger sovereign debt restructurings. Legal instruments to avoid this are briefly explored. An example of another key role of the law in crisis that is the task to resolve the tension between market discipline and financial stability is exemplified by the regulation of the OTC derivatives market and proposals of effective loss-sharing among CCPs. Related questions about the significance of legal rules to ensure financial stability are raised in the analysis of minimum capital requirements under Basel III.

In this article I analyse venture capital finance using the tools provided by the literature on the economics of innovation, in particular the notion of localised technological knowledge and the resource-based theory of the firm, to build a model of financial contracting. This entails that, instead of looking exclusively at financial indicators or monetary incentives, I will deepen the knowledge connection between the venture capitalist and the financed firm, as the benchmark to understand the potential of this source of finance. Consistent with evidence regarding venture funding, the model portrays a separation between a financial and a non-financial part of the venture investment, which is reflected in a “dichotomy” among the investors. In fact, the model shows that the success of a venture program is strictly linked to the knowledge flow inspired and reinforced by the complementarities between the knowledge bases of entrepreneur and venture capitalist, instead to a particular financing scheme as sustained by most of the literature. The model can also suggest a new methodology to analyse other intermediaries, always exploiting the central role of knowledge in designing financial contracts. Copyright 2007 , Oxford University Press.

This paper examines how the investment of financially constrained firms varies with their level of internal funds. We develop a theoretical model of optimal investment under financial constraints. Our model endogenizes the costs of external funds and allows for negative levels of internal funds. We show that the resulting relationship between internal funds and investment is U-shaped. In particular, when a firm's internal funds are negative and sufficiently low, a further decrease leads to an increase in investment. This effect is driven by the investor's participation constraint: when part of any loan must be used to close a financing gap, the investor will provide funds only if the firm invests at a scale large enough to generate the revenue that enables the firm to repay. We test our theory using a data set with close to 100,000 firm-year observations. The data strongly support our predictions. Among other results, we find a negative relationship between measures of internal funds and investment for a substantial share of financially constrained firms. Our results also help to explain some contrasting findings in the empirical investment literature.

There are three stakeholders in a public-private partnership (PPP), (a) the government in office, (b) private firms (financial and non-financial) and investors (individual and institutional), and (c) final beneficiaries (taxpayers or users, present and future). The raison detre of PPPs is threefold: (i) to crowd in private firms and investors into projects that they will otherwise not undertake; (ii) to transfer to the private sector a significant part of the risks and costs that the government would otherwise fully absorb; and (iii) to ensure that the projects efficiency/quality is at least equal to that obtained if the government alone carried all costs and risks. Important (yet often ignored) implications follow. First, outsourcing (e.g., construction and maintenance) to the private sector does not by itself constitute a PPP if all risks and costs are, in one way or another, still borne by the government. Second, a PPP does not reduce total risk; it simply distributes it differently, involving private sector firms and investors. Third, the total costs borne by the final beneficiaries would be lower under a PPP (compared to a project whose costs and risks rest completely in the governments balance sheet) only if the PPP achieves efficiency gains; otherwise, what beneficiaries save in taxes they will pay in user fees, although, under a PPP, more of the costs would be assigned to direct beneficiaries/users, than to taxpayers at large. Fourth, that a PPP can provide (cash) budget relief may be a welcome corollary for the government in office but it is not a core objective of a PPP.

We consider a Stackelberg game, where a financially constrained leader competes with a "deep pocket" follower, and analyze the trade-off between a financial and a strategic advantage for both the design of financial contracts and market structure.

We investigate the relationship between corporate and country sustainability on the cost of bank loans. We look into 470 loan agreements signed between 2005 and 2012 with borrowers based on 28 different countries across the world and operating in all major industries. Our principal findings reveal that country sustainability related to both social and environmental frameworks has a statistically and economically impactful effect on direct financing of economic activity. An increase of one unit in country sustainability scores is associated with an average decrease in the costs of debt by 64 basis points. Our analysis shows that the environmental dimension of a country’s institutional framework is approximately two times as impactful as the societal dimension when it comes to determining the cost of corporate loans. On the other hand, we find no conclusive evidence that firm-level sustainability influences the interest rates charged to borrowing firms by banks.

The bank insolvency framework in Poland should be modernized to ensure financial stability, maintain the continuity of critical functions in the banking system, and protect depositors and creditors, while assigning losses according to a pre-established creditor hierarchy. Several country experiences in Europe and elsewhere have demonstrated the effectiveness of new bank resolution measures by the European commission. A key aspect of the resolution process is for the authorities to swiftly assess and revalue the balance sheet of the intervened bank. Other particularities of modern resolution procedures relate to maintaining the integrity of secured financial contracts to prevent disruptions in financial market transactions including in payments and settlements systems. The treatment of systemically important institutions should rely on extraordinary resolution tools which are necessary if a bank is too large to be purchased or for its liabilities to be readily assumed. The purpose of this paper is thus to describe and recommend new features that can be added to strengthen the Polish legislation for handling commercial bank insolvencies. The paper focuses on the legal issues related to insolvency of banks (including commercial banks and cooperative banks). The banking sector's share in the total assets of the credit sector amounts to 89 percent while cooperative banks control 6 percent. The only wholly-owned state bank is the development bank Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego (BGK) which is subject to supervision by the Polish Financial Supervisory Authority (KNF).

U.S. Day-Ahead Markets (DAMs) for wholesale electric power managed by Independent System Operators (ISOs) encompass more than 60% of U.S. generating capacity. The current design of these DAMs encourages a focus on decisions that minimize immediate net costs without explicit consideration of pre-DAM and post-DAM decision opportunities. This study proposes a practical DAM reformulation that enables a coupled consideration of past, current, and future energy/reserve procurement processes. The key innovation is the inclusion of ISO-determined virtual supply offers and virtual demand bids into the DAM power balance equations that permit the ISO to plan to satisfy next-day balancing needs by an efficient mix of energy/reserve cleared before, during, and subsequent to the DAM. The proposed reformulation is illustrated for three types of DAMs: a day-ahead energy market; a co-optimized day-ahead energy/reserve market; and a stochastic co-optimized day-ahead energy/reserve market.

We investigate how borrowers corporate governance influences bank loan contracting terms in emerging markets and how this relation varies across countries with different country-level governance. We find that borrowers with stronger corporate governance obtain favorable contracting terms with respect to loan amount, maturity, collateral requirements, and spread. Firm-level and country-level corporate governance are substitutes in writing and enforcing financial contracts. We also find that the distinctiveness of borrowers characteristics affect the relation between firm-level corporate governance and loan contracting terms. Our findings are robust, irrespective of types of regression methods and specifications. JEL Classification: G20, G30, G31, G34, G38.

Many commodities are traded on both a spot market and a derivative market. We show that an incumbent producer may use purely financial derivatives to extract rent from a potential entrant. It can do so by selling derivatives to a large buyer for more than his expected production level. This exclusionary scheme comes at the cost of inefficiently deterring entry and creating too much risk for the buyer. We further show that it can still be used when contracts are offered anonymously through a broker, as the incumbent can signal its identity by adjusting the contracting terms.

Les trois essais dans cette thèse étudient les implications des frictions financières, telles que les contraintes de collatérale ou de crédit, pour les décisions économiques des agents et leur impact sur les variables macro-économiques agrégées. Dans le premier chapitre "Financial Contracts and the Political Economy of Investor Protection" nous proposons une théorie du niveau de protection des investisseurs. Une faible protection des investisseurs implique un coût de financement externe plus élevé à cause des problèmes d'agence plus aigus entre les investisseurs et les entrepreneurs. À l'équilibre, ceci exclut les agents plus dépendants sur le financement externe de l'entrepreneuriat, ce qui augmente les profits des entrepreneurs qui restent actifs. Quand le niveau de la protection des investisseurs est choisi par un vote majoritaire, la théorie génère (i) une protection des investisseurs plus faible dans les économies avec plus grande inégalité dans les besoins de financement externe parmi les entrepreneurs, (ii) une dynamique non-monotone de l'output, (iii) améliorations (détériorations) de la protection des investisseurs suite à des ralentissements (accélérations) de l'output agrégé. L'évidence empirique donne un support à ces prédictions de la théorie. Dans le deuxième chapitre "Financial Frictions, Internal Capital Markets, and the Organization of Production", nous examinons comment la présence des frictions financières peut mener à la formation des conglomérats et des "business groups" diversifiées. Particulièrement, nous construisons un modèle d'équilibre général d'entrepreneuriat dans lequel les conglomérats émergent de façon endogène et substituent partiellement le marché du crédit imparfait. Nous montrons que ce modèle est capable d'expliquer quantitativement plusieurs faits stylisés concernant l'organisation de la production, les différences de productivité entre les firmes et les différences en présence des conglomérats entre les pays. Le troisième chapitre "Size and Productivity of Single-segment and Diversified Firms: Evidence from Canadian Manufacturing" étudie empiriquement la relation entre la taille, la productivité, et la structure organisationnelle d'une firme. Utilisant les micro-données sur les établissements manufacturiers canadiens, nous documentons plusieurs faits stylisés concernant la taille et la productivité totale des facteurs des établissements dans les conglomérats et dans les firmes non-diversifiées. Nous trouvons que les établissements dans les conglomérats sont en moyenne plus larges que leurs contreparties dans les firmes non-diversifiées, les petits établissements dans les conglomérats sont moins productifs que les établissements de taille similaire dans les firmes non-diversifiées, mais les larges établissements dans les conglomérats sont plus productifs que ceux de taille similaire dans les firmes non-diversifiées. Cette évidence est consistante avec réallocation interne efficiente des ressources au sein des conglomérats., The three essays in this thesis study the implications of financial frictions, such as collateral and credit constraints, for economic decisions of agents and their impact on aggregate macroeconomic variables. In the first chapter "Financial Contracts and the Political Economy of Investor Protection", we propose a theory of the level of investor protection. Lower investor protection implies higher cost of external financing due to more severe agency problems between outside investors and entrepreneurs. In equilibrium, this excludes more financially dependent agents from entrepreneurship, increasing the profits of the remaining entrepreneurs. When the level of investor protection is chosen by majority voting, the theory generates (i) lower investor protection in economies with higher inequality in financial dependence across entrepreneurs, (ii) non-monotone output dynamics, (iii) improvements (worsening) of investor protection following output slowdowns (accelerations). The empirical evidence provides some support to these predictions. In the second chapter "Financial Frictions, Internal Capital Markets, and the Organization of Production", we investigate how the presence of financial frictions may lead to formation of diversified conglomerates or business groups. Specifically, we build a general equilibrium model of entrepreneurship in which business groups arise endogenously and partially substitute for imperfect credit market. We show that the model is able to quantitatively explain several key stylized facts on the way production is organized, on cross-firm productivity differences, and on cross-country differences in the degree of conglomeration. The third chapter "Size and Productivity of Single-segment and Diversified Firms: Evidence from Canadian Manufacturing" studies empirically the relation between size, productivity, and the organizational structure of a firm. Using micro-data on Canadian manufacturing plants, we document several stylized facts about size and total factor productivity of establishments in conglomerates and single-segment firms. We find that establishments in conglomerates are on average larger than their counterparts in single-segment firms, small plants in conglomerates are less productive than plants of similar size in single-segment firms, but large plants in conglomerates are more productive than those of similar size in single-segment firms. This evidence is consistent with efficient internal reallocation of resources in conglomerates.

Many countries in the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region, especially in South America, fared well during the global crisis and are now on a strong growth path. The region s recession in 2009 was relatively short lived and, with the notable exception of Mexico, remarkably mild. The current pace of economic recovery is exceeding expectations, with gross domestic product (GDP) projected to grow in the 5-6 percent range in 2010. This report discusses LAC's newfound resilience in the midst of financial globalization, examining key features of the cyclical behavior of LAC economies in comparison to other emerging economies and to its own past. Resilience is defined throughout this report in a broad sense to denote the ability of an economy to navigate with minimum disturbances through shocks, cushioning their negative spillovers in bad times, and recovering fast after a downturn. The report is structured as follows: first, it evaluates the relative performance of LAC countries during the contractionary period generated by the recent global crisis, to shed light on LAC's ability to shield its economies or soften the blow of a large external shock. Second, a similar exercise is conducted for the recovery phase of the cycle, when in the aftermath of an external shock more resilient countries will be expected to have a faster and more robust recovery. Third, it takes a deeper look at the different driving forces behind the recovery, including the role of domestic demand, commodity prices, and the connection to emerging Asia. Fourth, it provides evidence of the ability of different countries in LAC to conduct counter-cyclical policies in response to the global financial crisis. Lastly, a concluding section warns about the main macro-financial tensions and challenges lying ahead for the region.

http://www.fma.org/Hamburg/Papers/competition_debt_v3.pdf; Working Paper, Swiss Finance Institute and Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Extranef 24; This paper empirically investigates how the intensity of product market competition affects the cost of debt. Using a large sample of loans to publicly traded US manufacturing …rms, I provide evidence that an intensi…cation of product market competition among fi…rms signi…cantly increases the cost of bank loans. The analysis reveals that the effect is strongest in industries with high illiquidity and speci…city of assets. This …finding indicates that the liquidation value of assets is an important channel through which competition affects the cost of debt. Moreover, I …find that loans to …firms that operate in more competitive industries contain more covenants restricting the …firms financing and dividend policies. Overall, the results suggest that banks explicitly take into account the risk arising from product market competition when pricing and designing debt contracts.

As part of its Global Policy Initiative, Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) partnered with the Superintendence of Banks, Insurance and AFPs of Peru in late 2008, with the purpose of enhancing the understanding of the issues and trends in consumer relations when financial services are delivered through branchless banking, particularly through agents, which are used in ever increasing scale in Peru. The product was this joint report. Three other countries with relevant experience in branchless banking (Kenya, Brazil and India) participated in a similar exercise at approximately the same time. As in the case of Peru, the exercise gave an opportunity for regulators of each jurisdiction to look at their regulatory and institutional framework for protecting branchless banking users, evaluate their regulatory and supervisory actions, and identify areas for improvements. A forthcoming CGAP focus note complements the effort, by making an overall evaluation of the lessons learned in these countries and drawing on the knowledge from other pioneer countries such as South Africa, Mexico, Colombia and the Philippines. The focus note will point out and address priority areas of concern and possible regulatory and policy options to address them. The first part of the report outlines the financial inclusion efforts currently being undertaken by the Superintendence. The following section summarizes the most important points of the legal and regulatory framework for financial consumer protection, pointing out any specificity of branchless banking. The third part describes the branchless banking business in Peru and describes the issues and problems identified in the relationship between branchless banking clients and providers, and the supervisory and enforcement implications. The last section draws conclusions and makes recommendations for achieving a balance between openness to innovation and protection in a branchless banking environment.

We examine the effect of trust on financial investment and contracting decisions in a micro-economic environment where trust is exogenous. Using hand-collected data on European venture capital, we show that the Eurobarometer measure of trust among nations significantly affects investment decisions. This holds even after controlling for investor and company fixed effects, geographic distance, information and transaction costs. The national identity of venture capital firms’ individual partners further contributes to the effect of trust. Education and work experience reduce the effect of trust but do not eliminate it. We also examine the relationship between trust and sophisticated contracts involving contingent control rights and find that, even after controlling for endogeneity, they are complements, not substitutes.

Many commodities are traded on both a spot market and a derivative market. We show that an incumbent producer may use financial derivatives to extract rent from a potential entrant. The incumbent can indeed sell insurance to a large buyer to commit himself to compete aggressively in the spot market and drive the price down for the entrant. It can do so by selling derivatives for more than his expected production level, i.e. by taking a speculative position. This comes at the cost of inefficiently deterring entry.

We examine the effect of trust on financial investment and contracting decisions in a micro-economic environment where trust is exogenous. Using hand-collected data on European venture capital, we show that the Eurobarometer measure of trust among nations significantly affects investment decisions. This holds even after controlling for investor and company fixed effects, geographic distance, information and transaction costs. The national identity of venture capital firms’ individual partners further contributes to the effect of trust. Education and work experience reduce the effect of trust but do not eliminate it. We also examine the relationship between trust and sophisticated contracts involving contingent control rights and find that, even after controlling for endogeneity, they are complements, not substitutes.

Major European countries have recently adopted bankruptcy codes that strengthen entrepreneurs’ power to renegotiate outstanding liabilities. Renegotiation in bankruptcy allows lenders to increase recovery rates, however it also weakens the contract’s ability to solve the repeated moral hazard problem embedded in the production project. Hinging on this basic trade-off, I show in which circumstances a soft bankruptcy law that resembles Chapter 11 in the balance of lenders’ and entrepreneur’s rights encourages the choice of investments that privilege the achievement of long-term results. However, I also show that, in contrast to the common wisdom, soft bankruptcy can lead to the choice of investments that are biased towards the achievement of short-term outcomes.

Many commodities are traded on both a spot market and a derivative market. We show that an incumbent producer may use financial derivatives to extract rent from a potential entrant. The incumbent can indeed sell insurance to a large buyer to commit himself to compete aggressively in the spot market and drive the price down for the entrant. It can do so by selling derivatives for more than his expected production level, i.e. by taking a speculative position. This comes at the cost of inefficiently deterring entry.

This paper contributes to the debate on optimal bankruptcy reform by providing a set of results that challenge the wisdom that "soft" bankruptcy codes have necessarily positive effects. The model hinges on the key idea that "soft" bankruptcy allows a poor performing entrepreneur to renegotiate the terms of the initial contract with a lender. In the presence of moral hazard, the optimal arrangement requires the hampering of project's continuation as punishment for poor performance. However, if the lender can increase recovery rates in bankruptcy such pun- ishment is not renegotiation-proof. Clearly, this exacerbates the agency problem and creates a tension between ex-post and ex-ante effciency that may impede the implementation of long- term projects.

This paper contributes to the debate on optimal bankruptcy reform by providing a set of results that challenge the wisdom that "soft" bankruptcy codes have necessarily positive effects. The model hinges on the key idea that "soft" bankruptcy allows a poor performing entrepreneur to renegotiate the terms of the initial contract with a lender. In the presence of moral hazard, the optimal arrangement requires the hampering of project's continuation as punishment for poor performance. However, if the lender can increase recovery rates in bankruptcy such pun- ishment is not renegotiation-proof. Clearly, this exacerbates the agency problem and creates a tension between ex-post and ex-ante effciency that may impede the implementation of long- term projects.

We investigate whether cultural differences between professional decision makers affect financial contracts in a large data set of international syndicated bank loans. We find that more culturally distant lead banks offer borrowers smaller loans at a higher interest rate and are more likely to require third-party guarantees. These effects do not disappear following repeated interaction between borrower and lender and are economically sizable: A one-standard-deviation increase in cultural distance, approximately the distance between Canada and the United States or between Japan and South Korea, is associated with a 6.5 basis point higher loan spread; the loan spread increases by about 23 basis points if the bank-firm match involves culturally more distant parties, for example, from Japan and the United States. We also find that cultural differences not only affect the relation between borrower and lender, but also hamper risk sharing between participant banks and culturally distant lead banks. This paper was accepted by Brad Barber, Teck Ho, and Terrance Odean, special issue editors.

The objective of this paper is to identify the role of memory in repeated contracts with moral hazard in financial intermediation. We use the database we have built containing the contracts signed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development EBRD between 1991 and 2003. Our framework is a standard setting of repeated moral hazard. After having controlled for the adverse selection component, we are able to prove that client reputation is the discrimination device according to which the bank fixes the amount of credit for the established clients. Our results unambiguously isolate the effect of memory in the bank's lending decisions., R. Nicolini research is supported by Ramón y Cajal and by Barcelona Economics Program of XREA. Financial support from research grants 2005SGR00470 and SEJ2005-01427/ECON is acknowledged.

More than regulations, laws on the books, or voluntary codes, enforcement is a key to creating an effective business environment and good corporate governance, at least in developing countries and transition economies. A framework is presented to help explain enforcement, the impact on corporate governance when rules are not enforced, and what can be done to improve corporate governance in weak enforcement environments. The limited empirical evidence suggests that private enforcement tools are often more effective than public tools. However, some public enforcement is necessary, and private enforcement mechanisms often require public laws to function. Private initiatives are often also taken under the threat of legislation or regulation, although in some countries bottom-up, private-led initiatives preceded and even shaped public laws. Concentrated ownership aligns incentives and encourages monitoring, but it weakens other corporate governance mechanisms and can impose significant costs. Various steps can be taken to reduce these costs and reinforce other corporate governance mechanisms. But political economy constraints, resulting from the intermingling of business and politics, often prevent improvements in the enforcement environment and the adoption and implementation of public laws.

Only abstract. Paper copies of master’s theses are listed in the Helka database (http://www.helsinki.fi/helka). Electronic copies of master’s theses are either available as open access or only on thesis terminals in the Helsinki University Library. Vain tiivistelmä. Sidottujen gradujen saatavuuden voit tarkistaa Helka-tietokannasta (http://www.helsinki.fi/helka). Digitaaliset gradut voivat olla luettavissa avoimesti verkossa tai rajoitetusti kirjaston opinnäytekioskeilla. Endast sammandrag. Inbundna avhandlingar kan sökas i Helka-databasen (http://www.helsinki.fi/helka). Elektroniska kopior av avhandlingar finns antingen öppet på nätet eller endast tillgängliga i bibliotekets avhandlingsterminaler. Väitöskirja koostuu johdantoluvusta ja neljästä rahoitussopimusten teoriaa käsittelevästä tutkimusluvusta. Ensimmäisessä tutkimusluvussa väitän, että monet velkasopimusten optimaalisuutta selittävät haitallisen valikoitumisen mallit, jotka perustuvat näennäisesti ei-kriittisiin oletuksiin, eivät ole robustisia markkinarakenteen muutoksille. Tutkimuksessani väitän, ettei velkasopimus ole optimaalinen sopimus näissä malleissa, jos oletus kilpailullisista rahoitusmarkkinoista korvataan oletuksella, että monopolirahoittaja on yritysten ainoa rahoituksen lähde. Toisessa tutkimusluvussa tutkin mahdollisia hyvinvointivaikutuksia, joita syntyy jos pankkien sallitaan tehdä osakesijoituksia luotottamiinsa yrityksiin. Agentuurikustannusmallien perusteella pankkien osakesijoitukset luotottamiinsa yrityksiin näyttäisivät lievittävän velkarahoitukseen liittyvää yritysten moraalikato-ongelmaa. Tutkimuksessani osoitan, että pankkien osakeomistusten yllämainittu mahdollinen hyöty on pieni tai olematon, kun pankit mallitetaan yritysten monitoroijiksi ja kun mallissa otetaan huomioon, että ainakin osa yrityksistä pystyy hankkimaan rahoitusta suoraan rahoitusmarkkinoilta. Kolmannessa tutkimusluvussa laajennan Aghionin ja Boltonin tunnettua epätäydellisten sopimusten teoriaan perustuvaa mallia ja rakennan teoreettisen mallin, jolla pyrin selittämään seuraavia empiirisiä havaintoja päätösvallan jakamisesta yrittäjän ja pääomasijoittajan välillä. Jos yrityksen kannattavuutta kuvaava signaali (esimerkiksi yrityksen tuotot ennen veroja ja korkokuluja) on huono, pääomasijoittaja saa tyypillisesti kaiken päätösvallan yrityksessä. Jos yrityksen kannattavuus paranee, yrittäjä saa osan päätösvallasta. Jos yrityksen kannattavuus on erinomainen, pääomasijoittaja luopuu suurimmasta osasta päätösvaltaoikeuksiaan. Neljäs tutkimusluku on lyhyt kommentti yllämainittuun Aghionin ja Boltonin malliin. Osoitan, että Aghionin ja Boltonin mallin tärkein tulos, joka liittyy päätösvallan ehdollisen jakautumisen optimaalisuusominaisuuksiin epätäydellisten sopimusten mallissa, pätee vain tietyn ehdon vallitessa. This thesis consists of an introductory chapter and four essays on the financial contracting theory. In the first essay, we argue that many adverse selection models of the standard one-period loan contracts are not robust to changes in the market structure. We argue that debt is not an optimal contract in these models, if there is only one (monopoly) financier instead of a large number of competitive financiers. In the second essay, we examine the welfare effects of allowing banks to hold equity in their borrowing firms. According to the agency cost literature, banks' equity stakes in their borrowing firms would seem to alleviate firms' asset substitution moral hazard problem associated with debt financing. We argue that this alleged benefit of banks' equity holding is small or non-existent when banks are explicitly modeled as active monitors and when firms have access also to market finance. In the third essay, we extend the well-known incomplete contracting model of Aghion and Bolton to attempt to explain the empirical observation that the allocation of control rights between the entrepreneur and the venture capitalist is often contingent in the following way. If the indicator of the company's performance (eg earnings before taxes and interest) is low, the venture capital firm obtains full control of the company. If company performance improves, the entrepreneur retains or obtains more control rights. If company performance is very good, the venture capitalist relinquishes most of his control rights. The fourth essay is a short note, in which we show that main result of the model of Aghion and Bolton related to the optimality properties of contingent control allocations under incomplete contracting environment holds only if an additional condition is satisfied. Saatavana elektronisena: http://www.bof.fi/fin/7_tutkimus/index.stm