Foreign aid’s effectiveness in promoting economic growth remains mired in controversy.We examine the impact of the volatility of aid on economic growth, controlling for the level of aid. A four-year panel analysis is conducted encompassing 155 countries over the period 1966-2001. We find that...

We use a classic Merton credit risk framework to argue that Islamic Banking Institutions (IBIs) face less incentive to take on risks than Conventional Banking Institutions (CBI). IBIs have less incentive for risk shifting both in and outside of distress situations. We test and confirm this...

We assess whether climate transition risk is priced in Europe's equity market by analysing relative equity returns of high versus low CO2-emitting firms. We use a panel data set covering firm-specific carbon emissions of 1,555 European companies over the period 2005-2019. We add to the existing...

We assess the impact of contingent convertible (CoCo) bonds and the wealth transfers they imply conditional on conversion on the risk-taking behaviour of the issuing bank. We also test for regulatory arbitrage: do banks try to maintain risk-taking incentives by issuing CoCo bonds, when...

We analyse the poisonous interaction between bank rescues, financial fragility and sovereign debt discounts. In our model balance sheet constrained financial intermediaries finance both capital expenditure of intermediate goods producers and government deficits. The financial intermediaries face...

We investigate the effectiveness of "Keynesian" fiscal stimuli when government deficits and debt rollovers are (possibly partially) financed by balance sheet constrained financial intermediaries. Because financial intermediaries operate under a leverage constraint, deficit financing of fiscal...