Reliable information on small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) is rare and costly for financial intermediaries. To compensate for this, relationship banking is often considered as the appropriate lending technique in the case of SMEs. In this paper we offer a theoretical model to analyze the...

The failure of the Maastricht criteria delayed Estonia’s accession to the European Monetary Union (EMU) until January 2011. During this time, trading shares with Eurozone countries declined, raising questions about the optimal accession time. In this study, the macroeconomic effects of...

For more than two decades now, current-account imbalances are a crucial issue in the international policy debate as they threaten the stability of the world economy. More recently, the government debt crisis of the European Union shows that internal current account imbalances inside a currency...

The determinants of migrants' remittances are the subject of this study based on German SOEP data. For our analysis of the probability and amount of remittances, we do not restrict ourselves on immigrants with a foreign citizenship, but focus on all individuals with a migration background. Major...

Russia's foreign debt problems worsened substantially after the financial crisis of 1998. The paper focuses on the key role of the government in servicing foreign debt and promoting institution building by showing how foreign debt influences the choice between official and unofficial taxation....

Governments have a substantial influence on the allocation of resources in setting the rules of the game of financial markets. However, up to now, institutional economics and the theory of financial markets are totally separated research areas. To close this analytical gap, our paper connects...