Our study of the corporate loan pricing policies of U.S. banks over the past two decades shows that loan spreads for riskier firms become relatively lower during periods of monetary policy easing compared to tightening. This effect is driven by banks with greater risk appetite, measured from individual banks’ answers to the Senior Loan Officers Opinion Survey. Our results hold with different fixed effects that account for time-varying observed and unobserved heterogeneity of credit demand and bank lending conditions that are not directly related to monetary policy. Together with our survey-based measure of bank risk appetite, we provide compelling evidence of the presence of a bank risk-taking channel of monetary policy in the U.S.

Abstract In this article, we show that when banks increase their use of wholesale funding they shorten the maturity of loans to corporations. This effect appears to be linked to banks’ exposure to rollover risk resulting from their increasing use of short-term uninsured funding. Banks that use more wholesale funding shorten both the maturity of newly issued loans and the maturity of their loan portfolios. These results are not present among banks that rely predominantly on insured deposits. The link between wholesale funding and loan maturity is robust, and holds when we include firm-year fixed effects, suggesting that the decline in loan maturity is bank driven. In line with this premise, we find that the slope of the loan yield curve becomes steeper for banks that use more wholesale funding and that borrowers turn to the bond market to raise funding with longer maturity in response to banks’ loan maturity shortening.

We document that borrowing costs and credit ratings are less sensitive to off-balance sheet lease financing than to on-balance sheet debt financing, particularly for firms that are financially constrained and firms that have limited ability to use tax shields. This evidence is consistent with theoretical predictions based on tax benefits as well as bankruptcy costs. Our evidence on borrowing costs and credit ratings suggests that credit markets treat operating leases differently from balance sheet debt. Consistent with this interpretation, we document that firms closer to ratings borderlines lease more, particularly around the investment grade borderline.

The high-tech sector accounts for the majority of corporate innovation in modern economies. In a sample of 38 countries, we document a strong positive relation between the initial size of the country's high-tech sector and subsequent rates of GDP and total factor productivity growth. We also find a strong positive connection between a country's equity (but not credit) market development and the size of its high-tech sector. Our main difference-in-differences estimates show that better developed stock markets support faster growth of innovative-intensive, high-tech industries. The main channels for this effect are higher rates of productivity and faster growth in the number of new high-tech firms. Credit market development fosters growth in industries that rely on external finance for physical capital accumulation but is unimportant for growth in innovation-intensive industries. These findings show that stock markets and credit markets play important but distinct roles in supporting economic growth. Stock markets are uniquely suited for financing technology-led growth, a particularly important concern for advanced economies.

We examine the hypothesis that fluctuations in the aggregate supply of bank loans influence the supply of new equity capital. Using residual lending standards as a clean measure of aggregate loan supply and a VAR framework to aid identification, we find that a one-standard-deviation shock to lending standards results in 15% fewer IPOs. Shocks elicit strong responses from IPO-firms that are highly dependent on external capital and increase the number of withdrawals, strengthening the interpretation that the above is driven by changes in the supply of equity. Our results suggest that credit conditions are important to a well-functioning IPO market.

We examine the motives for and consequences of 4759 cross-border acquisitions constituting $593 billion of total activity that were led by government-controlled acquirers over the period from 1990 to 2008. Government acquirers are more likely than corporate acquirers to come from autocratic countries with higher levels of foreign currency reserves and more active domestic acquisitions programs, and they are more likely to pursue targets in countries with larger natural resource sectors and more potential to diversify their own industrial structures. When we account for the potential endogeneity of bidder-target matching that arises from a government deal being correlated with such observable or other unobserved characteristics, we find government deals are associated with higher announcement returns for the target firms, a higher probability of engaging in a complete control (100%) transaction, and no higher likelihood of deal failure or withdrawal compared to corporate deals. Policy implications are discussed, especially in light of recent regulatory changes in the U.S. and other countries that seek to restrict foreign acquisitions by government-controlled entities.

Abstract International Financial Reporting Standards ( IFRS ) allow firms to record adjustments (gains or losses) from the revaluation of investment properties in their income statements. After Hong Kong adopted IFRS in 2005, property companies were required to move their revaluation gains and losses ( RGL ) from equity to income. We find RGL to be a significant determinant of executive compensation in these firms after 2005, but not before. We further find evidence that the RGL ‐compensation association is driven by firms with relative weak corporate governance structure, such as firms in which the controlling shareholders own a relatively small percentage of shares, firms in which the controlling shareholders have control rights that exceed ownership rights, and firms that are no longer run by their founders.