This survey reviews the literature on the political economy of financial structure, broadly defined to include the size of capital markets and banking systems as well as the distribution of access to external finance across firms.The theoretical literature on the institutional basis for...

In the analysis of the credit crisis of 2007-2010 a clear distinction should be made between (i) the initial shock; (ii) the propagation and amplification of the initial shock to the systemic crisis of the financial markets; and (iii) the transmission of the credit crisis to the real economic...

We analyze the distribution of economic activity across space for different types of activity and different levels of aggregation. Not only is this distribution highly uneven (independently of the type of activity and level of aggregation), it is also remarkably regular regarding its size...

Can a wealth shift to emerging countries explain instability in developed countries? Investors exposed to political risk seek safety in countries with better property right protection. This induces private intermediaries to offer safety via inexpensive demandable debt, and increase lending into...

We study how financial frictions affect firm-level heterogeneity and trade. We build a model where productivity differences across monopolistically competitive firms are endogenous and depend on investment decisions at the entry stage. By increasing entry costs, financial frictions lower the...