We examine the influence of cross country differences on debt maturity for small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) using a sample of 3366 SMEs from 19 European countries. We analyze a country's legal environment, institutional environment, banking structure and economic situation while...

This paper examines the impact of country specific determinants on multiple banking using a unique survey sample of 4959 SMEs from 19 European countries. Our data shows that (1) SMEs in countries with inefficient loan enforcement mechanisms are more likely to maintain multiple bank...

The recent financial crisis has led to a major debate about fair-value accounting. Many critics have argued that fair-value accounting, often also called mark-to-market accounting, has significantly contributed to the financial crisis or, at least, exacerbated its severity. In this paper, we...

The recent financial crisis has led to a vigorous debate about the pros and cons of fair-value accounting (FVA). This debate presents a major challenge for FVA going forward and standard setters' push to extend FVA into other areas. In this article, we highlight four important issues as an...

The aim of the paper is to show that e-commerce holds the potential to transform banking and financial systems. There are three aspects in which e-commerce can affect banking and finance. First, banks and financial firms can use the technology and business practice of e-commerce to market their...