In the light of first-hand data from a Beninese urban household survey in Cotonou, we investigate several motives aiming to explain participation in Rotating Savings and Credit ASsociations. We provide empirical findings which indicate that individuals use their participation in a rosca as a...

Ireland's loan funds were a long lived, self-sustaining, large-scale microcredit organization that made millions of loans, without collateral, to the poor. We examine the life-cycle of this institution and show how the loan funds responded to their economic environment in ways that benefitted...

Using a large firm level panel data set from four Asian countries, this paper compares the returns to various internal and external funds. A novel feature of our analysis is that we distinguish between financially constrained and unconstrained firms and determine selectivity-corrected estimates...

The efficiency of speculative markets, as represented by Fama's 1970 fair game model, is tested on weekly price index data of six Asian stock markets - Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand - using Sherry's (1992) non-parametric methods. These scientific testing methods...

Liberalization of Singapore's financial sector causes its fund management industry to expand rapidly. As of December 1, 1998 there were 191 unit trusts to choose from. Eventually, Singapore, like the USA and Hong Kong, will have more unit trusts than stocks listed on its exchange. Many...

Using three alternative models that incorporate the behavior of both credit constrained and unconstrained firms in a theoretically consistent manner, this paper presents evidence on the effects of economic liberalization of 1991 in India. Two robust conclusions emerge from the estimation of the...

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...

The research presented in this paper is undertaken in response to the debate on capital flight from Russia. This debate usually involves discussion of its determinants but misses the question of its ultimate effects on the economy. Lack of understanding of the economic nature of capital flight...

An overlapping generations model with two production factors and two types of agents is considered in presence of …nancial intermediation. The research focuses at the analysis of the consequences of a suddain negative production shock on a …nancial intermediation capacities and consequently...

In the light of the inequity of the way losses from bank insolvencies and their avoidance through intervention by the authorities have been distributed over creditors, depositors, owners and the population at large in transition and emerging economies, this paper explores a number of regulatory...