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The reason for concern is the rapid decline in loans to small enterprises which is critical to their performance, compared to large businesses following the periods of banking reformations in Nigeria. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of risk perception on bank lending behaviour to small enterprises. It also investigates the impact of government intervention, consolidation and recapitalization on the relationship between risk perception and bank lending behaviour to small enterprise.

This study empirically analysed (ordinary least square) secondary data obtained from the Central Bank of Nigeria Statistical Bulletins, Annual Statement of Accounts covering the period 1992–2020.

The results show that the absence of government interventions and the presence of banking reformations have statistically negative significant effect on bank lending to small enterprises. The findings challenge the argument that generally assumes risk aversion of banks towards small enterprise lending because of small enterprise’s inability to prove their credit worthiness and consequently constraining access to finance to the sector. Instead, the results and analysis from this study found theoretical support for the variation of bank behaviour in lending to small enterprises depending on the status of wealth of the financial system.

A key lesson from this study for government concerned about promoting performance of the small enterprise sector is that regulating and enforcing lending requirements on access to debt financing of the sector is necessary if constraints in access debt finance is to be eliminated. Second, while strategies such as bank consolidation, recapitalization may help strengthen and make financially robust the banking system; it places the banks in a gain position where losses looms to them than gain.

This study challenges the argument that generally assumes risk aversion of banks towards small enterprise lending as a result of inability to prove their credit worthiness and consequently constraining access to finance to the sector. Instead, the results and analysis from this study reveal a variation in lending to small enterprises and suggests that the position of the bank in relation to a reference point influences how risk is perceived by the bank and thus impacts on their risk decision-making behaviour.

To elaborate the nature of fact-checking in the domain of political information by examining how fact-checkers assess the validity of claims concerning the Russo-Ukrainian conflict and how they support their assessments by drawing on evidence acquired from diverse sources of information.

Descriptive quantitative and qualitative content analysis of 128 reports written by the fact-checkers of Snopes – an established fact-checking organisation – during the period of 24 February 2022 – 28 June, 2023. For the analysis, nine evaluation grounds were identified, most of them inductively from the empirical material. It was examined how the fact-checkers employed such grounds while assessing the validity of claims and how the assessments were bolstered by evidence acquired from information sources such as newspapers.

Of the 128 reports, the share of assessments indicative of the invalidity of the claims was 54.7%, while the share of positive ratings was 26.7%. The share of mixed assessments was 15.6%. In the fact-checking, two evaluation grounds, that is, the correctness of information and verifiability of an event presented in a claim formed the basis for the assessment. Depending on the topic of the claim, grounds such as temporal and spatial compatibility, as well as comparison by similarity and difference occupied a central role. Most popular sources of information offering evidence for the assessments include statements of government representatives, videos and photographs shared in social media, newspapers and television programmes.

As the study concentrated on fact-checking dealing with political information about a specific issue, the findings cannot be extended to concern the fact-checking practices in other contexts.

The study is among the first to characterise how fact-checkers employ evaluation grounds of diverse kind while assessing the validity of political information.

Over a long period, even low inflation has an impact on portfolio value and households’ purchasing power. In such a context, inflation hedging should remain an important issue for investors. In particular, long-term investors, who are concerned with the protection of their wealth, seek to hold effective hedging assets. This study aims to demonstrate that residential assets in “Grand Paris” are a hedge against inflation and particularly against its unexpected component.

In this study, the physical residential markets in 127 communes in Paris and the Parisian first-ring suburbs are considered as potential asset classes. We simplified the analysis by clustering the 127 communes into five homogenous groups using ascending hierarchical classification (AHC). Then, we test the hedging ability of these groups within a mixed asset portfolios using both correlation and regression analysis.

This paper presents an analysis of the “Grand Paris” housing market and its inflation hedging ability with comparison to other financial asset classes. Results show that the five housing groups act as a highly positive hedge against unexpected inflation. Furthermore, cash and bonds seem to provide, respectively, a partial and an over hedge against unexpected inflation. Stocks act as a perverse hedge against unexpected inflation and provide no significant hedge against expected inflation. Also, indirect listed real estate demonstrates little correlation with inflation, which makes us reject its hedging ability contrary to physical residential real estate.

The inflation topic: although several researches exist that question the hedging property of real estate, very few concentrate on physical residential assets and to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the only one that targets the “Grand Paris” area. Residential assets of the “Grand Paris” communes are confirmed to be a hedge against inflation and particularly against its unexpected component thanks to its capital appreciation rather than income one. Also, we show that the listed real estate in France (Sociétés d’Investissement Immobilier Cotée) does not provide the same hedging properties contrary to the US real estate investment trusts (REITs) who demonstrate this ability. Listed real estate could thus not be used interchangeably with housing to protect from inflation in the French market.

Protection of investors against inflation and in particular in the face of its return to France in 2022. Reassuring promoters and investors of the interest of residential investment projects in “Greater Paris” and of the potential that this holds.

Inflation takes a chunk out of the purchasing power of money and thereby erodes the real value of people’s finance. Investors and households who seek protection from inflation erosion should invest in direct housing, and in particular within areas that are experiencing an effective metropolization process.

The originality of the study is precisely relative to the geographical area studied. The latter has experienced favorable economic conditions for several years and offers interesting fundamentals to explore and exploit in investment strategies that prove capable of protecting against imminent inflation. The database is specific to this project and has been built through the compilation of several sources and with the support of BNP Paribas Real Estate.