Banks play a role in the corporate governance of firms as well as acting as debt financiers around the world. Universal banks can have control over borrowing firms by representation on the board of directors or by holding shares through direct stakes or institutional holdings. We investigate the...

During 2005-2006, the Chinese government implemented a reform aimed at eliminating the so-called non-tradable shares (NTS), shares typically held by the State or by politically connected institutional investors that were issued at the early stage of financial market development. Our analysis,...

This paper uses survey data for 29,000 households from 29 transition economies to explore how the use of banking services is related to household characteristics, bank ownership structure and the development of the financial infrastructure. At the household level we find that the holding of a...

This paper explores the reasons why an increasing number of firms in continental Europe are unifying their shares into a single class, and analyzes the consequences of this restructuring. Interestingly, recent changes in corporate governance environment have created a situation when the reasons...

Focusing on emerging market currency arrangements, we build a model of an exchange rate peg with escape clauses and output persistence. We first show how output persistence works as an additional 'fundamental' so that an exogenous increase in persistence can make the currency peg more vulnerable...

The regulatory use of banks' internal models aims at making capital requirements more accurate and reducing regulatory arbitrage, but may also give banks incentives to choose their risk models strategically. Current policy answers to this problem include the use of risk-weight floors and...

We study the effects of the diversification of funding sources on the financing conditions for firms. We exploit a regulatory reform which took place in Italy in 2012, i.e., the introduction of "minibonds", which opened a new market-based funding opportunity for unlisted firms. Using the Italian...

We analyze jointly optimal carbon pricing and leverage regulation in a model with financial constraints and endogenous climate-related transition and physical risks. The socially optimal emissions tax is below the Pigouvian benchmark (equal to the direct social cost of emissions) when emissions...

We assess the impact of the corporate sector purchase programme (CSPP), the corporate arm of the ECB's quantitative easing, over its first year of activity (June 2016 - June 2017). Focusing on the primary bond market, we find evidence of a significant impact of the CSPP on yield spreads, both...

We assess the impact of the corporate sector purchase programme (CSPP), the corporate arm of the ECB's quantitative easing, over its first year of activity (June 2016 – June 2017). Focusing on the primary bond market, we find evidence of a significant impact of the CSPP on yield spreads, both...