Does Judicial Efficiency Lower the Cost of Credit?
The authors investigate the effect of judicial efficiency on banks' lending spreads for a large cross section of countries. They measure bank interest rate spreads for 106 countries at an aggregate level, and for 32 countries at the level of individual banks. The authors find that-after controlling for a number of other country characteristics-judicial efficiency, in addition to inflation, is the main driver of interest rate spreads across countries. This suggests that in addition to improving the overall macroeconomic climate in a country, judicial reforms, through a better enforcement of legal contracts, are critical to lowering the cost of financial intermediation for households and firms.
Summary: | The authors investigate the effect of
judicial efficiency on banks' lending spreads for a
large cross section of countries. They measure bank interest
rate spreads for 106 countries at an aggregate level, and
for 32 countries at the level of individual banks. The
authors find that-after controlling for a number of other
country characteristics-judicial efficiency, in addition to
inflation, is the main driver of interest rate spreads
across countries. This suggests that in addition to
improving the overall macroeconomic climate in a country,
judicial reforms, through a better enforcement of legal
contracts, are critical to lowering the cost of financial
intermediation for households and firms. |
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