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This paper investigates how inflation influences an individual's trust in banks. Using individual data covering 72 countries, we find that inflation, both recent and experienced throughout life, exerts a detrimental influence on trust in banks. Even if recent inflation has a stronger impact, these results support the view that inflation has both short- and long-term effects on trust in banks. Additional estimations show that individual characteristics like education and access to information can affect the negative impact of inflation on trust in banks. Overall, our results indicate that fighting against inflation prevents a lasting reduction of trust in banks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate whether European banks adjust their loan prices and volumes of new lending in the months running up to major national elections. Using a unique dataset that draws on data covering some 250 banks in 19 Eurozone countries from 2010 to 2020 at monthly frequency, and that includes lending amounts and interest rates on new lending, we find that European banks increase loan rates for corporate and housing loans ahead of elections. This supports the view that loan pricing changes of European banks are driven by the electoral uncertainty inherent to the democratic election process. We find that the impact of elections is more pronounced for small banks, as well as obtain some evidence that elections affect the credit supply of banks. Our findings suggest that the occurrence of elections is affecting the behavior of European banks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the effect of CEO gender on the relationship between economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and corporate investment. Using the newspaper-based EPU index developed by Baker, Bloom, and Davis (2016), we perform an empirical investigation on firm-level data of more than 38,000 firms from eight European countries for 2010–2019. We find evidence that higher EPU is associated with higher corporate investment. However, we show that this beneficial effect of economic policy uncertainty is lower when the firm CEO is a woman. We explain this finding by the higher risk aversion of women relative to men. Our work contributes to the debate on the impact of EPU on firm corporate decisions by bringing upfront the influence of CEO gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To analyze whether the occurrence of elections affects access to credit for firms, we perform an investigation using firm‐level data covering 44 developed and developing countries. The results show that elections impair access to credit. Specifically, firms have lower access to credit in election years and pre‐election years as elections exacerbate political uncertainty. While higher borrower discouragement is a tangible negative effect of elections, their occurrence per se does not seem to affect loan acceptance by banks. We also document that the negative relationship between elections and credit access is shaped by country and election characteristics as well as firm characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effect of executive board gender diversity on the relationship between economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and bank liquidity hoarding (LH). We focus on the Russian banking sector, which, relative to most of the world, has a high share of women on bank executive boards. Using the news-based EPU index developed by Baker, Bloom, and Davis (2016) and LH measures proposed by Berger, Guedhami, Kim, and Li (2022), we exploit a unique dataset from the Russian banking sector. While higher economic policy uncertainty tends to increase liquidity hoarding, we find this effect diminishes as gender diversity of the board increases. We attribute this finding to the moderating influence of gender diversity on stability and overreaction in decision-making. Additionally, we find that the channel through which board gender diversity affects the impact of economic policy uncertainty on liquidity hoarding takes place via the hoarding of liquid assets. Our findings are robust to the use of alternative measures for economic policy uncertainty and gender diversity. As women are still significantly under-represented on bank boards in most countries, these results argue for policies to promote gender diversity of bank boards as a means of limiting detrimental effects of economic policy uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russia has witnessed a high number of bank failures over the last two decades. Using monthly data for 2002-2020, spanning four election cycles, we test the hypothesis that bank failures are less likely before presidential elections. We find that bank failures are less likely to occur in the twelve months leading up to an election. However, we do not observe election cycles in bank failures are more pronounced for banks associated with greater political costs. Overall, our results provide mixed evidence that political cycles matter for the occurrence of bank failures in Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This survey aims at briefly summarising key findings of the recent literature dealing with politics and banking. The interplay between banks and politics has received increasing interest in recent years following Dinc (2005) on the influence of elections on bank lending. It focusses on two questions: the influence of elections on bank behaviour, and the interconnections between democracy and banking. Two key findings emerge from the literature. First, elections exert an influence on the banking industry. They affect bank lending and bank failures, with electoral cycles leading to economic costs. Second, democracy has a beneficial impact on the credit conditions of firms. This work provides a roadmap for future research to investigate the political interference in private banks' behaviour and in developed countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To analyze whether the occurrence of elections affects access to credit for firms, we perform an investigation using firm-level data covering 44 developed and developing countries. The results show that elections impair access to credit. Specifically, firms are more credit-constrained in election years and pre-election years as elections exacerbate political uncertainty. While lower credit demand is a tangible negative effect of elections, their occurrence per se does not seem to affect credit supply. We further establish that the design of political and financial systems affects how elections influence access to credit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]