Essays on Financial Technology and SME Finance: A Tale of Two Effects of the Global Financial Crisis: Financing SMEs and Innovative Financing

Abstract

as great as any I have experienced. I owe this to many. First, I would like to thank my supervisors at UPM, Felipe Ruiz, and at KTH, Anders Broström and Ali Mohammadi. Their patience and unwavering support in directing my curiosity and musings into meaningful and grounded endeavors has been priceless. Felipe, thank you so much for facilitating the way for me to engage in exciting research in finance and our enriching, thought-provoking and enjoyable discussions. You have always been very supportive of my endeavors and ambitions along the way and I immensely appreciate that. Anders, you are a great advisor, thoughtful, patient, committed and unyieldingly supportive. Thank you for giving me, the freedom to explore my ideas, and great support in guiding them. Ali, you are as great a teacher as one can hope for, energetic, dedicated, pedagogical, and untiringly optimistic. I value your advice greatly, not merely professionally, but personally as well.I would like to thank Gustavo Morales for his constant help and friendship, even going out of his way to make me feel welcome at UPM. That also goes for Isabel Herran who was devotedly helping me and others throughout the years. I would like to thank Hans Lööf for his invaluable help and for trusting me to deliver lectures or lead Masters' students. I would like to thank Andreas Stephan and Gustav Martinsson for valuable comments on my papers. I benefitted immensely from visiting, attending and engaging in seminars and courses at the Swedish House of Finance (SHoF) at Stockholm School of Economics for more than two years. I would particularly like to thank Per Strömberg, Ramin Baghai and Daniel Metzger at SHoF for fascinating conversations and courses on research in financial economics.This journey was enriched enormously because it was shared with fellow Ph.D. students and colleagues,