We analyze the effect of investor level taxes, firm-specific ownership structure and firm-specific payout policy on firms' capital structure choice. Our analysis is based on data for 10,983 firms from 13 Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries over the time period 2002-2012. Our results...

The tax bias in favour of debt finance under the corporate income tax means that corporate debt ratios exceed the socially optimal level. This creates a rationale for thin-capitalization rules limiting the amount of debt that qualifies for interest deductibility. This paper sets up a model of...

Empirical evidence suggests that even those firms presumably most in need of monitoringintensive financing (young, small, and innovative firms) have a multitude of bank lenders, where one may be special in the sense of relationship lending. However, theory does not tell us a lot about the...

This paper proposes and analyses a model of start-up investment. Innovative entrepreneurs are commercially inexperienced and can benefit from venture capital support. Only part of them succeed in matching with a venture capitalist while the rest must resort to standard bank finance. We consider...

The response in 2008-09 to the global financial crisis was in many ways a high water mark for transatlantic policy coordination. The major economies of the EU and the US rapidly agreed on a series of measures to limit the crisis. However, the common approach has since unraveled. This paper...

This document analyzes the patterns of fiscal and monetary policy in five economies of the Latin American Southern Cone (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay) during four episodes of international crises: 1994, 1997-1999, 2001 and 2008. In contrast with earlier episodes when most...

German policy during the Eurozone crisis supposedly follows an ordoliberal tradition. In this paper, we discuss to what extent this contention holds and to what extent Germany pragmatically responded to different crisis phenomena. A proper analysis of ordoliberal thinking reveals that the...