Thursday, 26 June – Hybrid Finance Research Seminar (Dr. Chloé Zapha, Banque de France)
When:
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Venue:
Birkbeck Central
We are pleased to invite you to the upcoming Finance Research Seminar on Thursday, 26 June, from 2:00 pm to 3:00 pm. The seminar will be held in hybrid format, with the in-person session taking place in Birkbeck Central Building, Room 311 (BCB311).
We are delighted to welcome Dr. Chloé Zapha from the Banque de France, who will present her paper:
Title: Are Banks Lazy? External Credit Ratings and the Monitoring of SMEs
Abstract:
This paper investigates the role of external credit ratings in bank lending, examining whether banks rely on them due to regulatory constraints or because they substitute for internal monitoring. Using data from the French credit register, the study implements a difference-in-differences strategy that exploits the staggered removal of bankruptcy flags from Banque de France credit ratings for SMEs between 2012 and 2019. The findings show that flag removal improves credit access and fosters the establishment of new banking relationships—primarily among banks subject to tighter regulatory requirements. These results suggest that reliance on external ratings is driven more by regulatory compliance than by inadequate borrower screening, supporting recent policy efforts to shorten the duration of bankruptcy flags to ease financing constraints for restructuring firms.
About the speaker:
Dr. Chloé Zapha is a Research Economist in the Microeconomic Analysis Division of the Research Directorate at the Banque de France. Her research lies at the intersection of Law and Economics, Banking and Finance, and Corporate Finance, with a focus on SME financing, credit access, insolvency frameworks, and firm-level heterogeneity. She earned her PhD in Economics from Université Paris Dauphine – PSL in 2023, under a CIFRE agreement with the Banque de France. Her work has been published in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization and covers topics including bankruptcy costs, preventive restructuring procedures, commercial court design, and state-guaranteed loan schemes.
All colleagues and students are warmly welcome to attend.
Please feel free to circulate this invitation within your networks.
Contact name: Ellen Yu
Speakers-
Dr. Chloé Zapha
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Dr. Chloé Zapha is a Research Economist in the Microeconomic Analysis Division of the Research Directorate at the Banque de France. Her research lies at the intersection of Law and Economics, Banking and Finance, and Corporate Finance, with a focus on SME financing, credit access, insolvency frameworks, and firm-level heterogeneity. She earned her PhD in Economics from Université Paris Dauphine – PSL in 2023, under a CIFRE agreement with the Banque de France. Her work has been published in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization and covers topics including bankruptcy costs, preventive restructuring procedures, commercial court design, and state-guaranteed loan schemes.
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