This paper applies the overreaction hypothesis of De Bont and Thaler [De Bont, W., Thaler, R., 1985. Does stock market overreact? Journal of Finance 40(3), 793–805], developed for stock price behavior, to capital flows to emerging markets. We find that a surge in capital flows, or what we call...

Capital inflows to emerging economies have a significant exogenous component, they are very large when scaled to the size of the domestic financial sectors of recipients and they have large real macroeconomic effects. They also sow the seeds for the ensuing sudden stops, or capital flow...

With extensive country and firm-level data sets, this paper first documents that the financial sectors of most Sub-Saharan African countries remain significantly underdeveloped by the standards of other developing countries. The paper also finds that population density appears to be considerably...

Using household surveys and bank penetration data at the district-level in 2006 and 2009, this paper examines the impact of Equity Bank-a leading private commercial bank focusing on microfinance-on access to banking in Kenya. Unlike other commercial banks in Kenya, Equity Bank pursues distinct...

This paper investigates the African financial development and financial inclusion gaps relative to other peer developing countries. The paper uses a set of variables related to financial development and inclusion. It first estimates the gaps between African countries and other developing...