This article investigates which firms borrow directly from the capital markets and which raise funds through intermediaries. Our empirical results show that large companies with abundant cash and collateral tap the credit markets directly. These markets cater to safe and profitable industries,...

This paper presents a dynamic, stochastic game-theoretic model of financial fragility. The model has two essential features. First, interrelated portfolios and payment commitments forge financial linkages among agents. Second, iid shocks to investment projects’ operations at a single date...

This paper surveys the economic literature on the links between finance, law and growth in the Central and Eastern European transition countries. The literature that is surveyed at the outset of the paper shows that if a financial system is based on an adequate legal system it can positively...

This paper examines data for stock prices and price levels of 14 developed countries during the post-WWII era and compares their behavior in that sample with behavior over the past two centuries in the UK and the US. Contrary to much of the literature of the past several decades, we find that...