Many distinguish between financial systems with a dominant role for banks and those with a dominant role for financial markets, assuming this is of great importance for economic development. The author analyses why the distinction might matter, first by investigating how bank and market finance...

How do stock markets respond to extreme events? This paper analyzes the reaction ofstock markets in four industrialized economies (Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, the US) to ten major international crises. We employ an event study to investigate whether the stock exchanges react differently with...