Since 1995 two Spanish banks -- Banco Santander Central Hispano and Banco Bilbao Vizcaya -- have become the largest foreign banks in retail banking in Latin America. This recent development merits careful analysis because foreign direct investment is rare in retail banking. We find that the...

Despite the scholarly interest in joint ventures and strategic alliances, the consortium bank movement represents an under-researched phase in post-war banking history. From 1964 to the mid-1980s, many of the largest banks in the world, including the Nordic banks, entered into international...

Banks have been engaging in foreign direct investment (FDI) for over 150 years. In doing so, they have had to deal with the problems of the liability of foreignness, generally without being able to depend on proprietary administrative or physical technology. Foreign direct investment in banking...

Foreign banks have had an organizational presence in the United States since the early 1800s. Until after World War II, the foreign banks' presence was generally limited. They engaged in trade finance, and in some cases ethnic banking. The growth really dates to the period from the mid-1960s to...

We discuss the expansion of Norwegian banks abroad in the post-World War II era. The Norwegian case gives us an opportunity to examine the determinants of the strategies that banks from a small county have followed in their international expansion. At least two issues emerge as important. The...

Lottery-linked deposit accounts have proved to be popular around the world. From the point of view of a bank, these products are especially successful among relatively low-income customers, or in markets in which many people are outside the banking system. Below, we describe numerous examples of...

Why are there such severe problems in lending in the transition countries? This research took a microeconomic and institutional look at part of the problem. We conducted interviews in Bulgaria and Hungary and sought answers to two questions. First, how do banks making "normal" loans insure that...

Singapore's "Big 4" banks, plus the newly merged Keppel TatLee Bank, have offices throughout the Asia-Pacific area, in London and North America as well and are also acquiring banks in Asia. Several factors have been particularly salient in explaining the timing and location of their expansion:...

This paper examines necessary conditions for a demand for new information to exist. In this one-period model, investors are homogeneous, have logarithmic utility, and must decide on information acquisition before trading starts, and without knowing what other investors will do. We examine the...

This paper examines necessary conditions for a demand for new information to exist. In this one-period model, investors are homogeneous, have logarithmic utility, and must decide on information acquisition before trading starts, and without knowing what other investors will do. We examine the...