Pub Date : 2025-08-25DOI: 10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102208
Xinyu Yu , Ping Wang
This study examines the impact of directors with foreign experience (FE directors) on corporate cash holdings. Using a sample of Chinese listed firms, we find that directors with the experience of working or studying abroad have a positive and significant impact on corporate cash decisions, supporting the precautionary motive. The result is valid across a set of robustness tests and several endogeneity checks. Moreover, we find that the association between FE directors and cash holdings is more pronounced in firms with greater financial constraints and investment opportunities. The mediation analysis further identifies two potential channels through which FE directors increase cash holdings, that is, facilitating foreign operations and promoting risky innovation. We finally perform a series of additional analyses to further validate our findings. Overall, our study reveals that it is the resource-providing role that such directors play to shape cash policy, which sheds new light on the value of international human capital for firms in emerging markets.
{"title":"Directors with foreign experience and corporate cash holdings","authors":"Xinyu Yu , Ping Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102208","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102208","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study examines the impact of directors with foreign experience (FE directors) on corporate cash holdings. Using a sample of Chinese listed firms, we find that directors with the experience of working or studying abroad have a positive and significant impact on corporate cash decisions, supporting the precautionary motive. The result is valid across a set of robustness tests and several endogeneity checks. Moreover, we find that the association between FE directors and cash holdings is more pronounced in firms with greater financial constraints and investment opportunities. The mediation analysis further identifies two potential channels through which FE directors increase cash holdings, that is, facilitating foreign operations and promoting risky innovation. We finally perform a series of additional analyses to further validate our findings. Overall, our study reveals that it is the resource-providing role that such directors play to shape cash policy, which sheds new light on the value of international human capital for firms in emerging markets.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48119,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Financial Markets Institutions & Money","volume":"104 ","pages":"Article 102208"},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2025-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144896145","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-08-23DOI: 10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102205
Heiko Jacobs , Alexander Lauber , Sebastian Müller
We analyze the extent to which proxies for short interest at the firm level influence the tone of media reporting for the cross-section of firms. The examination of the German stock market shows that there is a significantly negative relation. Nevertheless, this relation becomes often, though not always, insignificant after thoroughly controlling for relevant company characteristics. Past performance as well as measures of differences of opinion and information uncertainty prove to be particularly important for tonality. These findings are similar for domestic and foreign reporting. With the exception of salience shocks, these results are also obtained for both public and non-public short interest. Additional evidence results from article characteristics and the aggregated time series, among others. On a broader level, the results contribute to the discussion about drivers of media reporting in financial markets.
{"title":"Bearish bets and the press: On the relation between short interest and media tone","authors":"Heiko Jacobs , Alexander Lauber , Sebastian Müller","doi":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102205","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102205","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We analyze the extent to which proxies for short interest at the firm level influence the tone of media reporting for the cross-section of firms. The examination of the German stock market shows that there is a significantly negative relation. Nevertheless, this relation becomes often, though not always, insignificant after thoroughly controlling for relevant company characteristics. Past performance as well as measures of differences of opinion and information uncertainty prove to be particularly important for tonality. These findings are similar for domestic and foreign reporting. With the exception of salience shocks, these results are also obtained for both public and non-public short interest. Additional evidence results from article characteristics and the aggregated time series, among others. On a broader level, the results contribute to the discussion about drivers of media reporting in financial markets.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48119,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Financial Markets Institutions & Money","volume":"104 ","pages":"Article 102205"},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2025-08-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144890194","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-08-05DOI: 10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102199
Hachmi Ben Ameur , Zied Ftiti , Wael Louhichi
This study aims to assess whether the statistical properties of ESG assets contribute to portfolio resilience, mitigate market volatility, and enhance diversification. Specifically, we focus on variations in the tails of the return distribution, highlighting potential asymmetries in risk exposure. We use weekly ESG and conventional indices across various regions from January 2017 to May 2023. Empirically, we augment the mean-conditional value at risk (CVaR) optimisation technique, by introducing geopolitical risk as an exogenous factor. First, ESG indices enhance portfolio diversification while reducing exposure to extreme market movements and geopolitical uncertainty. Second, incorporating ESG assets is advantageous for both sustainable investment and effective financial risk management, presenting a viable option for investors pursuing both financial and sustainability objectives. Moreover, our results remain robust under incremental CVaR approach and align with the time-varying sensitivity of ESG and conventional indices to geopolitical risk, as shown by beta dynamics analysis. Our findings offer several insights for investors diversifying their portfolio.
{"title":"Do ESG investments improve portfolio diversification and risk management during times of uncertainty","authors":"Hachmi Ben Ameur , Zied Ftiti , Wael Louhichi","doi":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102199","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102199","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study aims to assess whether the statistical properties of ESG assets contribute to portfolio resilience, mitigate market volatility, and enhance diversification. Specifically, we focus on variations in the tails of the return distribution, highlighting potential asymmetries in risk exposure. We use weekly ESG and conventional indices<!--> <!-->across various regions from January 2017 to May 2023. Empirically, we augment the<!--> <!-->mean-conditional value at risk (CVaR) optimisation technique, by introducing geopolitical risk as an exogenous factor. First,<!--> <!-->ESG indices enhance portfolio diversification while reducing exposure to extreme market movements and geopolitical uncertainty.<!--> <!-->Second, incorporating ESG assets is advantageous for both sustainable investment and effective financial risk management, presenting a viable option for investors pursuing both financial and sustainability objectives. Moreover, our results remain<!--> <!-->robust under incremental CVaR approach<!--> <!-->and align with the<!--> <!-->time-varying sensitivity of ESG and conventional indices to geopolitical risk, as shown by<!--> <!-->beta dynamics analysis. Our findings offer several insights for investors diversifying their portfolio.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48119,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Financial Markets Institutions & Money","volume":"103 ","pages":"Article 102199"},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2025-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144772570","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-07-29DOI: 10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102201
Khusrav Gaibulloev , Ali Mirzaei , Tomoe Moore , Mohsen Saad
This paper rigorously examines the relationship between fintech financing and the financial and real performance of financially constrained firms in emerging countries. Using data from 45,770 firms across 20 countries for 2012–2020, we find that the performance of external-finance dependent firms is disproportionately higher when they operate in countries that receive more fintech funds. A host of robustness tests confirm our main finding. We further find that: (i) P2P lending and crowdfunding have greater implications on firm performance than balance sheet lending (ii) the relationship is particularly strong in young firms, and financially developed emerging countries with deeper disclosure of credit information, and (iii) specifically, in countries with greater banking penetration, there is evidence of a substitution effect between bank lending and fintech. Additionally, fintech finance increases capital investment, lowers borrowing costs, and boosts total factor productivity (TFP) to improve firm performance.
{"title":"The effect of fintech financing on firm performance: Evidence from emerging economies","authors":"Khusrav Gaibulloev , Ali Mirzaei , Tomoe Moore , Mohsen Saad","doi":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102201","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102201","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper rigorously examines the relationship between fintech financing and the financial and real performance of financially constrained firms in emerging countries. Using data from 45,770 firms across 20 countries for 2012–2020, we find that the performance of external-finance dependent firms is disproportionately higher when they operate in countries that receive more fintech funds. A host of robustness tests confirm our main finding. We further find that: (i) P2P lending and crowdfunding have greater implications on firm performance than balance sheet lending (ii) the relationship is particularly strong in young firms, and financially developed emerging countries with deeper disclosure of credit information, and (iii) specifically, in countries with greater banking penetration, there is evidence of a substitution effect between bank lending and fintech. Additionally, fintech finance increases capital investment, lowers borrowing costs, and boosts total factor productivity (TFP) to improve firm performance.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48119,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Financial Markets Institutions & Money","volume":"103 ","pages":"Article 102201"},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144721225","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-07-28DOI: 10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102185
Irem Erten
How do banks behave when the opportunity cost of keeping overnight liquidity is less? In this paper, I study the adoption of unconventional monetary policy with interest-on-excess-reserves (IOER) in the pre-2008-crisis period in Australia, Canada, Europe, Japan, and the United Kingdom. Exploiting this cross-border shock to the monetary design, I show that global banks move liquidity to their home countries and reduce their cross-border credit supply when their home Central Bank introduces a deposit facility that remunerates overnight excess reserves. The credit supply reduction is focused on the smaller, less profitable, and more illiquid branches of the affected banks. Thus, a reduction in the opportunity cost of overnight liquidity has a contractionary impact on the credit supply and results in global macroeconomic spillovers. The results suggest that banks cut lending when the Central Bank is a risk-free borrower and have broad implications for the design of monetary policy, payment systems, and liquidity regulations.
{"title":"Bank lending and interest-on-excess-reserves: Effects of Central Banks on the global credit supply","authors":"Irem Erten","doi":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102185","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102185","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>How do banks behave when the opportunity cost of keeping overnight liquidity is less? In this paper, I study the adoption of unconventional monetary policy with interest-on-excess-reserves (IOER) in the pre-2008-crisis period in Australia, Canada, Europe, Japan, and the United Kingdom. Exploiting this cross-border shock to the monetary design, I show that global banks move liquidity to their home countries and reduce their cross-border credit supply when their home Central Bank introduces a deposit facility that remunerates overnight excess reserves. The credit supply reduction is focused on the smaller, less profitable, and more illiquid branches of the affected banks. Thus, a reduction in the opportunity cost of overnight liquidity has a contractionary impact on the credit supply and results in global macroeconomic spillovers. The results suggest that banks cut lending when the Central Bank is a risk-free borrower and have broad implications for the design of monetary policy, payment systems, and liquidity regulations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48119,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Financial Markets Institutions & Money","volume":"103 ","pages":"Article 102185"},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144721221","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-07-28DOI: 10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102204
Rashid Zaman , Nader Atawnah , Deepa Banigidadmath , Muhammad Nadeem , Jia Liu
We investigate the impact of corporate renewable energy (RE) adoption on suppliers’ trade credit provisions. Using a global sample of 30 countries, we establish that firms engaging in higher RE consumption secure increased trade credit. Our results remain robust to a variety of sensitivity tests and after accounting for potential endogeneity concerns using the Paris Agreement and companies switching to green energy as exogenous shocks. Our channel analysis reveals that RE take-up mitigates companies’ environmental risk (proxied by environmental violation fines, media coverage of environmental controversies, GHG emissions, and environmental policy stringency). Additional tests reveal that the relationship between RE and trade credit is stronger for adopters with lower bargaining power and those in environmentally sensitive industries. Cross-sectional analysis reveals that the documented positive impact is stronger in developed economies and during periods of high policy uncertainty. Finally, we discover that RE adoption enhances firm value and promotes a supply-chain spillover, since adopters are also more likely to extend trade credit to their own customers. Our paper provides original evidence that RE adapting improves companies’ access to informal financing in the form of higher trade credit.
{"title":"Do companies’ green credentials enhance trade credit provisions? Global evidence","authors":"Rashid Zaman , Nader Atawnah , Deepa Banigidadmath , Muhammad Nadeem , Jia Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102204","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102204","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We investigate the impact of corporate renewable energy (RE) adoption on suppliers’ trade credit provisions. Using a global sample of 30 countries, we establish that firms engaging in higher RE consumption secure increased trade credit. Our results remain robust to a variety of sensitivity tests and after accounting for potential endogeneity concerns using the Paris Agreement and companies switching to green energy as exogenous shocks. Our channel analysis reveals that RE take-up mitigates companies’ environmental risk (proxied by environmental violation fines, media coverage of environmental controversies, GHG emissions, and environmental policy stringency). Additional tests reveal that the relationship between RE and trade credit is stronger for adopters with lower bargaining power and those in environmentally sensitive industries. Cross-sectional analysis reveals that the documented positive impact is stronger in developed economies and during periods of high policy uncertainty. Finally, we discover that RE adoption enhances firm value and promotes a supply-chain spillover, since adopters are also more likely to extend trade credit to their own customers. Our paper provides original evidence that RE adapting improves companies’ access to informal financing in the form of higher trade credit.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48119,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Financial Markets Institutions & Money","volume":"103 ","pages":"Article 102204"},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2025-07-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144714304","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-07-28DOI: 10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102202
Yingying Huang , Weizhong Liang , Kun Duan , Andrew Urquhart , Qiang Ye
This paper studies emotional spillovers in cryptocurrency markets and the associated impacts on market performance. By constructing a dynamic connectedness network, we capture the emotional spillover effects among the major cryptocurrencies and their time-varying evolution. We then quantify how the emotional spillovers of cryptocurrencies drive their market performance within a joint distributional framework that gauges the heterogeneity of such a linkage under different conditions of emotions and market performance of cryptocurrencies. Our results indicate that within emotional spillovers, cryptocurrencies act as the net information receiver, while carbon-intensive (dirty) cryptocurrencies play a greater role in driving emotional spillovers than eco-friendly (clean) ones. The stock market, being controlled by the emotional system, is found to be the major net provider. From a dynamic perspective, clean cryptocurrencies are shown to have stronger emotional spillover effects than dirty cryptocurrencies prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the effects of both gradually weaken thereafter. The role of emotional spillovers in driving market performance is often more pronounced under extreme market conditions in cryptocurrency markets.
{"title":"How do emotions drive market dynamics? A tale of spillovers in cryptocurrency markets","authors":"Yingying Huang , Weizhong Liang , Kun Duan , Andrew Urquhart , Qiang Ye","doi":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102202","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102202","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper studies emotional spillovers in cryptocurrency markets and the associated impacts on market performance. By constructing a dynamic connectedness network, we capture the emotional spillover effects among the major cryptocurrencies and their time-varying evolution. We then quantify how the emotional spillovers of cryptocurrencies drive their market performance within a joint distributional framework that gauges the heterogeneity of such a linkage under different conditions of emotions and market performance of cryptocurrencies. Our results indicate that within emotional spillovers, cryptocurrencies act as the net information receiver, while carbon-intensive (dirty) cryptocurrencies play a greater role in driving emotional spillovers than eco-friendly (clean) ones. The stock market, being controlled by the emotional system, is found to be the major net provider. From a dynamic perspective, clean cryptocurrencies are shown to have stronger emotional spillover effects than dirty cryptocurrencies prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the effects of both gradually weaken thereafter. The role of emotional spillovers in driving market performance is often more pronounced under extreme market conditions in cryptocurrency markets.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48119,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Financial Markets Institutions & Money","volume":"103 ","pages":"Article 102202"},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2025-07-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144714303","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-07-26DOI: 10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102200
Harvey Nguyen , Mia Hang Pham , Van Hoang Vu
We show that the leadership style of veteran CEOs has important implications for their companies’ costs of bank loans. We find that banks charge, on average, 10.8 basis points lower for firms headed by veteran CEOs, compared to otherwise similar firms. Firms with veteran CEOs are also subject to lower collateral requirements and covenant restrictions. The effect of veteran CEOs on loan costs comes from an improvement in the firm’s information environment and a reduction in firm risk. Overall, our study highlights the increasing relevance of leadership background in lending decisions, suggesting that personal characteristics may influence access to capital in global credit markets.
{"title":"Executives’ early-life experience and corporate debt contracting: Evidence from CEO military experience","authors":"Harvey Nguyen , Mia Hang Pham , Van Hoang Vu","doi":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102200","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102200","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We show that the leadership style of veteran CEOs has important implications for their companies’ costs of bank loans. We find that banks charge, on average, 10.8 basis points lower for firms headed by veteran CEOs, compared to otherwise similar firms. Firms with veteran CEOs are also subject to lower collateral requirements and covenant restrictions. The effect of veteran CEOs on loan costs comes from an improvement in the firm’s information environment and a reduction in firm risk. Overall, our study highlights the increasing relevance of leadership background in lending decisions, suggesting that personal characteristics may influence access to capital in global credit markets.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48119,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Financial Markets Institutions & Money","volume":"103 ","pages":"Article 102200"},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2025-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144711348","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-07-09DOI: 10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102197
Luca Agnello , Vítor Castro , Ricardo M. Sousa
We analyse how defaults, debt restructurings and resolution affect the duration of low sovereign rating cycles in a change-point Weibull duration model setup. Using a large panel of sovereign ratings data issued by the three largest credit rating agencies, we show that sovereigns implementing nominal debt relief during defaults or with an history of debt restructurings (including those supported by multilateral institutions) or (long) exits from international capital markets hardly escape the ’curse’ of protracted speculative-grade spells. Governments also tend to discriminate between domestic and foreign agents, ’prioritising’ foreign currency defaults.
{"title":"Speculative-Grade sovereign rating Cycles: Sovereign debt Defaults, restructurings and resolution","authors":"Luca Agnello , Vítor Castro , Ricardo M. Sousa","doi":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102197","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102197","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We analyse how defaults, debt restructurings and resolution affect the duration of low sovereign rating cycles in a change-point Weibull duration model setup. Using a large panel of sovereign ratings data issued by the three largest credit rating agencies, we show that sovereigns implementing nominal debt relief during defaults or with an history of debt restructurings (including those supported by multilateral institutions) or (long) exits from international capital markets hardly escape the ’curse’ of protracted speculative-grade spells. Governments also tend to discriminate between domestic and foreign agents, ’prioritising’ foreign currency defaults.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48119,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Financial Markets Institutions & Money","volume":"103 ","pages":"Article 102197"},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2025-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144579292","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-07-03DOI: 10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102180
Dieter Vanwalleghem , Carmela D’Avino
This paper examines the significance of functional distance in explaining the lending behavior of foreign branches of global banks. We operationalize functional distance, or the distance between the global bank’s headquarters and the host country of the foreign branch, along a geographic, linguistic, and cultural dimension. Analyzing the lending activities of US global banks’ foreign branches in 38 countries from 2001 to 2020, we find that geographic and linguistic functional distance has an adverse effect on local lending. We further find that a host country’s institutional quality can moderate the effect of functional distance on local lending.
{"title":"Functional distance and US global banks’ foreign branch lending","authors":"Dieter Vanwalleghem , Carmela D’Avino","doi":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102180","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102180","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper examines the significance of functional distance in explaining the lending behavior of foreign branches of global banks. We operationalize functional distance, or the distance between the global bank’s headquarters and the host country of the foreign branch, along a geographic, linguistic, and cultural dimension. Analyzing the lending activities of US global banks’ foreign branches in 38 countries from 2001 to 2020, we find that geographic and linguistic functional distance has an adverse effect on local lending. We further find that a host country’s institutional quality can moderate the effect of functional distance on local lending.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48119,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Financial Markets Institutions & Money","volume":"103 ","pages":"Article 102180"},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2025-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144535655","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}