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We examine how bank size affects borrowers, when information asymmetry is not particularly severe. Our sample comprises 20,806 loan facilities granted to 3,625 US public firms. After minimizing endogeneity concerns, we find that there is a positive relation between bank size and firm value, after the origination of the loan. Firms that borrow from large banks invest more, grow faster and have higher risk, proxied by earnings volatility. The effects are concentrated in borrowers which are ex-ante (pre-loan) safer (low leverage or high Z-Score) and muted, but not negative, in riskier firms. We highlight the bright side of large banks.

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This paper studies how the elimination of the corporate tax bias on bank leverage affects banks' credit provisioning using a quasi‐natural experiment, the introduction of an allowance for corporate equity (ACE) in Belgium. We find that affected banks increased their contribution within cross‐border syndicated loan facilities relative to other foreign banks, and that this effect was stronger for relatively safe borrowers. We estimate that Belgian bank‐led loans had on average 20–50 basis points lower spreads when ACE was in effect. Finally, our results suggest a relatively large, positive credit supply effect domestically.

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