This paper presents evidence of banks using accounting discretion to overstate the value of distressed assets. In particular, we show that the stock market applies far greater discounts to a bank’s real estate loans and mortgage-backed securities than are implicit in the book values of these...

Motivated the European debt crisis, we construct a tractable theory of sovereign debt and structural reforms under limited commitment. The government of a sovereign country which has fallen into a recession of an uncertain duration issues one-period debt and can renege on its obligations by...

This study analyses the likely pattern of structural adjustment of the Greek economy as economic integration proceeds, in light of the structural rigidities present in the commodity, capital and labour markets. The presence of such rigidities is attributed to `state corporatism', identified as...