This paper investigates the effects of national culture on firm risk-taking, using a comprehensive dataset covering 50,000 firms in 400 industries in 51 countries. Risk-taking is found to be higher for domestic firms in countries with low uncertainty aversion, low tolerance for hierarchical...

Uncertainty over economic policy plays a key role in economic outcomes. But evidence and quantification for emerging markets are elusive because of measurement and reverse causality issues. In this paper, we construct a news-based economic policy uncertainty (EPU) index for Turkey and assess how...

The paper uses both macro- and micro-level data to assess how has the financial health of the Irish non-financial corporate (NFC) sector changed in the post financial crisis period. The analysis suggests that vulnerabilities have generally declined in recent years, but the NFC sector and...

Nonviable 'zombie' firms have become a key concern in China. Using novel firm-level industrial survey data, this paper illustrates the central role of zombies and their strong linkages with state owned enterprises (SOEs) in contributing to debt vulnerabilities and low productivity. As a group,...

This paper analyzes the potential risks and vulnerabilities of non-financial corporates in Latin America and Canada. We quantify the impact of company-specific, countryspecific, and global factors in driving corporate spreads. Overall, we found that all these factors play a role in explaining...

The correlation bias refers to the fact that claim subordination in the capital structure of the firm influences claim holders' preferred degree of asset correlation in portfolios held by the firm. Using the copula capital structure model, it is shown that the correlation bias shifts shareholder...

This paper explores the concept of global liquidity, its measurement and macro-financial importance. We construct two sets of indicators for global liquidity: a quantity series distinguishing between core and noncore liabilities of financial intermediatires and a corresponding price series....

We study the effects of a bank's engagement in trading. Traditional banking is relationship-based: not scalable, long-term oriented, with high implicit capital, and low risk (thanks to the law of large numbers). Trading is transactions-based: scalable, shortterm, capital constrained, and with...

Capital market development in Brazil is a key policy issue going forward to foster savings, investment and absorptive capacity in a context of prospects for sizable capital flows in the medium term. During the last decade, Brazil has achieved substantial progress in capital market development....

This study assesses the overall impact on credit of the financial regulatory reforms in Europe, Japan, and the United States. Long-term cost estimates are provided for Basel III capital and liquidity requirements, derivatives reforms, and higher taxes and fees. Overall, average lending rates in...