We study the impact of the enforcement of financial regulation by the United Kingdom’s regulatory authorities on the market price of penalized firms. Existing studies rely on analyses of multiple events that may distort the measurement of reputational losses. In the United Kingdom, the entire enforcement process involves only one public announcement and is accompanied by complete information on legal penalties. We find that reputational losses are nearly nine times the size of fines and are associated with misconduct harming customers or investors but not third parties.

Do banks extending government-guaranteed loans simultaneously reduce their risk exposure to firms? Using unique euro-area credit register data and the COVID-19 guarantee programs as a laboratory, we find that 1 euro of guaranteed lending was associated with a reduction of 28 cents in non-guaranteed credit, relative to other banks lending to the same firm. Substitution was highest for riskier and smaller firms in more affected sectors and for stronger banks. Nevertheless, banks offered cheaper credit and longer maturities to guaranteed loan recipients, especially more fragile ones. This improvement in lending terms is the flipside of credit substitution.

By providing liquidity to depositors and credit-line borrowers, banks can be exposed to double-runs on assets and liabilities. For identification, we exploit the 2007 freeze of the European interbank market and the Italian Credit Register. After the shock, there are sizeable, aggregate double-runs. In the cross-section, credit-line drawdowns are not larger for banks more exposed to the interbank market; however, they are larger when we condition on the same firms with multiple credit lines. We show that, ex-ante, more exposed banks actively manage their liquidity risk by granting fewer credit lines to firms that run more during crises.

We show that negative interest rate policy (NIRP) has expansionary effects on credit supply through a portfolio rebalancing channel. By shifting down and flattening the yield curve, NIRP differs from rate cuts just above the zero-lower-bound and has effects similar to QE. For identification, we exploit ECB’s NIRP and the Italian credit register and, for external validity, European and U.S. datasets. NIRP affects more banks with higher ex-ante liquid assets, including net interbank positions. More exposed banks reduce liquid assets, expand credit supply, especially to financially-constrained firms, and cut loan rates, inducing firms to increase investment and the wage bill.

We show that FX interventions can be effective, particularly in attenuating global financial spillovers. We exploit global financial shocks and Brazilian central bank interventions in FX derivatives using three matched administrative registers: bank credit (to firms), foreign credit to banks, and employer‐employees. After the U.S. Taper Tantrum (followed by emerging markets' FX turbulence), Brazilian banks with more foreign debt cut credit supply, reducing firm‐level employment. A subsequent large policy intervention supplying derivatives against FX risks — hedger of last resort — halved the negative effects. A 2008 to 2015 panel exploiting global FX shocks and local FX interventions confirms the results and the hedging channel. However, the FX policy entails fiscal and moral hazard costs.