This Paper analyses firms’ capital allocation decisions when optimal capital structure is linked to the risk of underlying assets and when equity capital is costly and cannot be raised instantaneously. In the model, division managers receive private information and authority is delegated to...

Models of managerial short-termism rely on a number of assumption, such as limited availability of capital, fixed compensation schemes and an additive impact of managerial ability on revenue. We discuss the role of these assumption in generating short-termism. We show that when managerial...

This Paper considers monetary and exchange rate policy in Korea since the financial crisis of 1997-98. The Bank of Korea has adopted much of the apparatus of inflation targeting, with a band for target inflation and a Monetary Policy Report to the National Assembly. This regime has served the...

The countries of Central and Eastern Europe have displayed widely disparate trade performance since the beginning of the transition. The Czech Republic and Hungary have had some success moving into the production and export of more technologically-sophisticated, higher value-added goods, while...

This paper uses firm level panel data to investigate empirically the effects of direct foreign investment (DFI) on the productivity performance of domestic firms in three emerging economies of Central and Eastern Europe, Bulgaria, Romania and Poland. To this end a unique firm level panel data...

This Paper examines the relationship between foreign ownership and productivity, paying particular attention to two issues neglected in the existing literature – the role of multinationals in service sectors and the importance of R&D activity conducted by foreign multinationals. We review...

This paper examines spillover effects of the activities of multinational firms (MNCs). Such effects are most likely to be found in host countries, where the operations of foreign multinationals may influence local firms in the MNC’s own industry as well as firms in other industries. There is...

Countries with strong executive constraints have lower growth volatility but similar average growth to those with weak constraints. This paper argues that this may explain a strong reduced-form correlation between executive constraints and inflows of foreign investment. It uses a novel dataset...

Firm-level data for the Czech Republic during 1992–6 suggest that foreign investment has tended to flow to firms of above average size, initial profitability and initial labour productivity. After controlling for this selection bias, we find that foreign investment has a positive, but...