The paper examines currency crisis theories and applies them in searching for the main causes of the Russian crisis. We first study the determination of the exchange rate and then the first and second generation theories on currency crisis and finally the recent theoretical discussions of the...

Corruption, which remains a serious problem in many countries, has prompted considerable research in recent years. This paper adds to the extant literature with insights on factors influencing corrupt activity. Using cross-country data for about 100 nations, the roles of national history,...

We propose exploiting the term structure of relative interest rates to obtain estimates of changes in the timing of a currency crisis as perceived by market participants. Our indicator can be used to evaluate the relative probability of a crisis occurring in one week as compared to a crisis...

This paper tests an endogeneity hypothesis of optimum currency area (OCA) criteria (Frankel and Rose, 1998) on a cross-section of OECD countries between 1990 and 1999. The findings indicate that convergence of business cycles relates to intra-industry trade, but has no direct relation between...

Using a novel way to identify relationship and transaction banks, we study how banks’ lending techniques affect funding to SMEs over the business cycle. For 21 countries we link the lending techniques that banks use in the direct vicinity of firms to these firms’ credit constraints at two...

The paper investigates institutional development in the Russian forestry sector after 1991. As it argues, while there has been a great degree of decentralization, original market-oriented reform blueprints for the industry were only partially implemented. The reasons for this can be found...