This paper analyzes the relationship between the terms on bank loans and local crime rates, employing a sample of over 300,000 bank-firm relationships. Controlling for firm, market and bank characteristics the results show that where the crime rate is higher borrowers pay higher interest rates,...

Why do some countries suffer from backward financial institutions and weak corporate governance rules? We show that, even if, overall, the economy would benefit corporate governance reforms, not all the agents would stand to gain from the improvement. In particular, entrepreneurs and firms that...

Since output growth volatility has negative effects on growth, poverty and welfare, especially in poorer countries, it is crucial to identify the country-specific factors that affect it. The empirical literature has focused mostly on financial development, policy distortions and globalization...

Why do some states default on their debt more often than others? We argue that sovereign default is the outcome of a political struggle among different groups of citizens. It is more likely to happen if: (i) domestic debt-holders are relatively weak; (ii) the the political costs of the financial...

We study the effects of anti-competitive service regulation by examining whether OECD countries with less anti-competitive regulation see a better economic performance of manufacturing industries using less-regulated services more intensively. Our results indicate that lower service regulation...

This paper examines how firm characteristics, the legal system and financial development affect corporate finance decisions using a novel and unexplored data set containing balance sheet information for listed and unlisted companies. Contrary to the previous literature, by using data on unlisted...

This paper examines how firm characteristics, the legal system and financial development affect corporate finance decisions using a novel and unexpored data set containing balance sheet information for listed and unlisted companies. Contrary to the previous literature, by using data on unlisted...

Post-war Italy provides an interesting case to test for recent contributions on economic growth which play down the relevance of physical capital per se and stress its complementarity with infrastructure and less tangible factors such as finance and human capital. In truth, behind the remarkable...

Both macro and (still scarce) micro evidence support the idea that a new economy is emerging in the US, not (yet) in Europe. Some have argued that the inadequacies of Europe�s financial system are an important part of the explanation. This paper, after surveying the existing literature on...

Since the mid-nineties international financial integration has advanced gradually in the emerging areas of Asia, while it has progressed rapidly in Central and Eastern Europe. This process has helped provide long-term benefits for the economies of the two regions in terms of faster productivity...