We examine the effect of size-dependent policies in developing economies by focusing on a set of regulations that are applicable to firms with 20 or more formal employees in Peru. Firms can adjust to the regulations by (a) reducing their size, (b) shifting employment composition, or (c)...

Real estate investment accounts for a quarter of total fixed asset investment (FAI) in China. The real estate sector's extensive industrial and financial linkages make it a special type of economic activity, especially where the credit creation process relies primarily on collateral, like in...

Real estate investment accounts for a quarter of total fixed asset investment (FAI) in China. The real estate sector’s extensive industrial and financial linkages make it a special type of economic activity, especially where the credit creation process relies primarily on collateral, like in...

The legacy of non-performing loans and high opportunity cost of government financing of bank recapitalization impeded the efficiency of financial intermediation and are an important policy issue in Vietnam. This paper presents a theoretical and empirical analysis of the issue. An empirical...

It is challenging to explain the collapse in the price of subprime mortgage-backed securities (MBS) during the Financial Crisis of 2008, using the existing models of fire-sale. I present a model to demonstrate that fire-sales may happen even when there is a relatively sizable pool of natural...

The study documents evidence of a ""quality effect"" of financial liberalization on allocative efficiency, which is measured by the dispersion in Tobin''s Q across firms. Based on a simple model, the authors predict that financial liberalization, by equalizing access to credit, reduces the...

This paper assesses the efficiency of government expenditure on education and health in 38 countries in Africa in 1984-95, both in relation to each other and compared with countries in Asia and the Western Hemisphere. The results show that, on average, countries in Africa are less efficient than...

This paper examines the performance of emerging market bank stocks around the time of rating changes by major international agencies. The data suggest that downgrades on average have followed periods of negative cumulative abnormal returns for banks, although upgrades have not followed periods...