The Journal of Finance publishes leading research across all the major fields of finance. It is one of the most widely cited journals in academic finance, and in all of economics. Each of the six issues per year reaches over 8,000 academics, finance professionals, libraries, and government and financial institutions around the world. The journal is the official publication of The American Finance Association, the premier academic organization devoted to the study and promotion of knowledge about financial economics.
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Learning to Navigate a New Financial Technology
Published: 6/17/2026, Volume: , Issue: | DOI: 10.1111/jofi.70062 | Cited by: 0
EMILY BREZA, MARTIN KANZ, LEORA KLAPPER
We present results from a field experiment that introduced digital payroll accounts to unbanked factory workers to examine how inexperienced consumers learn to use a new financial technology. We find that exposure to payroll accounts leads to increased account use, accelerated learning, and avoidance of common consumer protection risks. Those receiving electronic wage payments gradually build trust in the technology, learn to use accounts without assistance, and avoid illicit fees. Using experimental variation in assignment to bank versus mobile money accounts, we show that these impacts are concentrated in mobile money accounts, the newer, more complex, and less trusted financial technology.
Incentivizing Calculated Risk‐Taking: Evidence from an Experiment with Commercial Bank Loan Officers
Published: 3/12/2015, Volume: 70, Issue: 2 | DOI: 10.1111/jofi.12233 | Cited by: 126
SHAWN COLE, MARTIN KANZ, LEORA KLAPPER
We conduct an experiment with commercial bank loan officers to test how performance compensation affects risk assessment and lending. High‐powered incentives lead to greater screening effort and more profitable lending decisions. This effect is muted, however, by deferred compensation and limited liability, two standard features of loan officer compensation contracts. We find that career concerns and personality traits affect loan officer behavior, but show that the response to incentives does not vary with traits such as risk‐aversion, optimism, or overconfidence. Finally, we present evidence that incentives distort the assessment of credit risk, even among professionals with many years of experience.
Capital Structure and Financial Risk: Evidence from Foreign Debt Use in East Asia
Published: 11/7/2003, Volume: 58, Issue: 6 | DOI: 10.1046/j.1540-6261.2003.00619.x | Cited by: 224
George Allayannis, Gregory W. Brown, Leora F. Klapper
AbstractUsing a data set of East Asian nonfinancial companies, we examine a firm's choice between local, foreign, and synthetic local currency (hedged foreign currency) debt. We find evidence of unique as well as common factors that determine each debt type's use, indicating the importance of examining debt at a disaggregated level. We exploit the Asian financial crisis as a natural experiment to investigate the role of debt type in firm performance. Surprisingly, we find that the use of synthetic local currency debt is associated with the biggest drop in market value, possibly due to currency derivative market illiquidity during the crisis.