Essays on banking and financial markets

The banking and financial markets play a critical role in the modern economic world, which has raised great attention in recent years. Source of researches have put great efforts on the driving forces connecting to the relevant financial markets. The main objective of the thesis is to explore the potential research questions around firm financing channels: bank lending and capital markets. The author developed three independent yet related research topics to address the issues around firms and financial markets. In line with the pecking order theory, the indirect financing is via financial intermediary of which firms can access funds from outside credit. Therefore, the first empirical study investigates the bank loans, especially the syndicated lending markets. The direct finance through pecking order theory access to various financial markets, where the equity market is of primary interests. The author therefore examined the factors contributing to the stock market performance, such as the flight-to-safety effect, and stock performance under the global COVID-19 shock to supply chain, respectively.