This paper describes our case study based research exploring the shift from traditional ‘open-outcry’ to electronic trading in the major futures Markets in London and Chicago. We outline the emergence of electronic trading in these Markets, with the aim of examining the influences that will...

This paper describes case study based research on the use of innovative computer-based decision support systems introduced into corporate lending processes in a major UK bank. It describes how the new technology was implicated in shifting boundaries: within the sector as a whole and in specific...

Many financial applications, such as risk analysis and derivatives pricing, depend on time scaling of risk. A common method for this purpose, though only correct when returns are iid normal, is the square–root–of–time rule where an estimated quantile of a return distribution is scaled to a...

This paper focuses on the impact of financial market infrastructures (FMIs) and of their regulation on the post-crisis transformation of securities and derivatives markets. It examines, in particular, the role that trading and post-trading FMIs, and their new regulatory regime, are playing in...

Few microfinance-funded businesses grow beyond subsistence entrepreneurship. This paper considers one possible explanation: that the structure of existing microfinance contracts may discourage risky but high-expected return investments. To explore this possibility, I develop a theory that...

Few microfinance-funded businesses grow beyond subsistence entrepreneurship. This paper considers one possible explanation: that the structure of existing microfinance contracts may discourage risky but high-expected-return investments. To explore this possibility, I develop a theory that...

Why is GDP growth so much more volatile in poor countries than in rich ones? We identify four possible reasons: (i) poor countries specialize in more volatile sectors; (ii) poor countries specialize in fewer sectors; (iii) poor countries experience more frequent and more severe aggregate shocks...

Why is GDP growth so much more volatile in poor countries than in rich ones? We identify four possible reasons: (i) poor countries specialize in more volatile sectors; (ii) poor countries specialize in fewer sectors; (iii) poor countries experience more frequent and more severe aggregate shocks...