This paper examines how financial development influences foreign direct investment. The direct and indirect sector-specific effects that source countries'financial development and destination countries'financial development can have on foreign direct investment are first identified in a...

This paper investigates the effect that tight credit conditions had on outward foreign direct investment flows during the 2008-2010 global financial crisis. A difference-in-differences approach is used to isolate a"credit channel"impact of the global financial crisis on foreign direct...

The real exchange rate is said to be the single most important price in an economy. While we used to think that we knew what explained its movements (e.g., the Balassa-Samuelson effect), the recent much-cited result by Engel (1999) proposes a serious reinterpretation – i.e., nearly 100% of the...

Based on a survey that we designed and that covers a stratified random sample of 12,400 firms in 120 cities in China with firm-level accounting information for 2002-2004, this paper examines the presence of systematic distortions in capital allocation that result in uneven marginal returns to...

The paper studies the effect of the market's perceived exchange rate volatility on bid-ask spreads. The anticipated volatility is extracted from currency options data. An increase in the perceived volatility is found to widen bid-ask spreads. The direction of the effect is consistent with an...

Crony capitalism and international creditors'self-fulfilling expectations are often suggested as rival explanations for currency crises. A possible link between the two has not been explored. The author shows one channel through which crony capitalism can increase the chance of a...

This paper studies the role of insider trading in explaining cross-country difference in stock market volatility. It introduces a new (albeit imperfect) measure of insider trading for 50 or so countries. The central finding is that countries with more prevalent insider trading do have more...

This paper studies the impact of corruption in emerging markets on the mode of entry and volume of inward foreign direct investment using a unique firm-level data set. It examines two effects of corruption simultaneously: a reduction in the volume of foreign investment and a shift in the...