Abstract
AbstractWe investigate the causal relationship between the efficiency of country's judicial system and the quality of bank lending, using the contracts enforcement reforms implemented in four European countries as a quasi‐natural experiment. We find that strengthening contracts enforcement determines large, significant and persistent reductions in banks' nonperforming loans. Our results have important policy implications: they point at judicial efficiency as a critical determinant of the stability of the banking sector and its resilience to adverse shocks such as the recent Covid‐19 pandemic.
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