The Central European banking industry is dominated by foreign-owned banks. During the recent crisis, for the first time since the transition, foreign parent companies were frequently in worse financial conditions than their subsidiaries. This situation created a unique opportunity to study new...

The Warsaw Stock Exchange is one of Europe’s largest exchanges by the number of IPOs, although it retains features of a market in post-transition countries, including a relatively small size, shallowness and a weak institutional framework. In this study, we use a large dataset to explore...

In this paper we examine the determinants of ex-ante state capture analyzing all the legal acts that have been passed in the period 1990-2011 in Poland. We find that during this the majority of legal acts were passed with the aim to satisfy the interest of particular groups. Furthermore, the...

In this paper, we examine whether legal systems affect the structure of capital markets in terms of the development of bond markets versus equity markets. Using a dataset of 42 developed and developing countries, we document that a country's legal system, especially investor protections,...

We examine whether foreign-owned and government-owned banks in Central and Eastern Europe reacted differently during a domestic systematic banking crisis and the global financial crisis of 2008. Our panel dataset comprises data on more than 400 banks for the period 1994- 2010. Our analysis shows...

In this paper we investigate the effects of region and industry?wide spillovers from foreign direct investment (FDI) on the volumes of export of Ukrainian manufacturing firms, using unpublished panel data from 1996?2000. Economic theory suggests that FDI has direct and indirect effects on firm?s...

This paper investigates the effects of macroeconomic volatility on nonfinancial firms cash holding behavior. Using an augmented cash bufferstock model, we demonstrate that an increase in macroeconomic volatility will cause the crosssectional distribution of firms cashtoasset ratios to narrow. We...

All countries are eager to attract as much foreign investments as possible. At the same time FDI may have not only positive, but also negative economic effects for receiving countries. Positive effects are associated with technology transfer, efficient allocation of resources, and training of...

This paper studies the effect on company performance of appointing non-executive directors that are also executive directors in other firms. The analysis is based on a new panel dataset of UK companies over 2002-2008. Our findings suggest a positive relationship between the presence of these...

This paper studies the incidence, determinants and pricing of unprotected oral sex in the London sex services market. The analysis is based upon matched sex worker-client panel data, which were collected from "field reports" on PunterNet.com website over the 1999-2009 time period. We find a...