We study how financial market efficiency affects a measure of diversification of output across industrial sectors borrowed from the portfolio allocation literature. Using data on sector-level value added for a wide cross section of countries and for various levels of disaggregation, we construct...

This paper examines whether European regions which incorporate banks with a higher intermediation quality grow faster and are more resilient to negative shocks than its less efficient peers. For this purpose, we measure a bank's intermediation quality by estimating its pro t and cost efficiency...

This paper assesses the linkages between money, credit, house prices and economic activity in industrialised countries over the last three decades. The analysis is based on a fixed-effects panel VAR estimated using quarterly data for 17 industrialized countries spanning the period 1970-2006. The...

We investigate financing constraints in a large cross-country data set covering most of the European economy. Firm level investment sensitivity to cash flow is used to identify financing constraints. We find that the sensitivities are significantly positive on average, controlling for country...

In a stochastic pure endowment economy with money but no financial markets, two types of agents trade one non-durable good using two alternative types of cash constraints. Simulations of the corresponding variants are compared to Arrow-Debreu and Autarky equilibriums. First, this illustrates how...

This paper examines the fundamental relationship between retail payments and the real economy. Using data from across 27 European markets over the period 1995-2009, the results confirm that migration to efficient electronic retail payments stimulates the overall economy, consumption and trade....

We study the relation between the structure of financial systems and carbon emissions in a large panel of countries and industries over the period 1990-2013. We find that for given levels of economic and financial development and environmental regulation, CO2 emissions per capita are lower in...

We analyse the drivers of Bitcoin transactions against 44 fiat currencies in the largest peer-to-peer crypto exchanges. Momentum and volatility in the cryptoasset market, as well as volatility and liquidity in global financial markets do matter for Bitcoin trading. There is suggestive evidence...

Four years after the introduction of the euro, this paper provides an overview of the current structure and integration of the euro area financial systems and related policy initiatives. We first compare the euro area financial structure with that of the United States and Japan. Using new and...