The increasing pervasiveness of technology-driven firms that offer banking services has led to a growing pressure on traditional banks to modernize their core business activities. Many banks tackle the challenges of digitalization by cooperating with startup firms that offer technology-driven...

The purpose of this article is to analyze how competitive forces may influence the way media firms like TV channels raise revenue. A media firm can either be financed by advertising revenue, by direct payment from the viewers (or the readers, if we consider newspapers), or by both. We show that...

This paper surveys tax haven legislation and links the literature on tax havens to the literature on asymmetric information. I argue that the core aim of tax haven legislation is to create private information (secrecy) for the users of tax havens. This leads to moral hazard and transaction costs...

This article reviews recent theoretical contributions on digital piracy. It starts by elaborating on the reasons for intellectual property protection, by reporting a few facts about copyright protection, and by examining reasons to become a digital pirate. Next, it provides an exploration of the...

This paper considers the optimal taxation of savings intermediation and payment services in a dynamic general equilibrium setting, when the government can also use consumption and income taxes. When payment services are used in strict proportion to final consumption, and the cost of...

An important question is whether VAT exemption of financial services is a desirable property or whether it is justified only due to practical and administrative necessity. This paper singles out a number of financial services for discussion of this issue in a context allowing for other taxes and...

Financial inclusion is crucial for the inclusive and sustainable economic growth of developing countries. Access to financial services to all citizens, particularly to low income and poor people is a key to promote inclusive growth. While rural financial inclusion assumes importance from policy...

This study concentrates on the signal approach for Kazakhstan. It focuses on the properties of individual indicators prior to observed currency crises. The indicators are used to build composite indicators. An advanced approach uses principal components analysis for the construction of composite...

We consider a mean-variance general equilibrium economy where the expected returns for controlling and non-controlling shareholders are different because the former are able to divert a fraction of the profits. We find that when investor protection is poor, asset return correlation affects...

Comparative quantitative research into the causes, responses to, and effects of banking crisis uses two series of crisis data: Reinhart and Rogoff (2009, 2010) and Laeven and Valencia (2013, and their predecessors). While these data sets provide broad coverage, the measures they code have...