Germany's bank-based financial system provides a high level of financial inclusion, measured by bank outreach and use of financial services. However, the most vulnerable individuals and small enterprises in Germany tend to be excluded or credit constrained. The quality of financial inclusion is...

By employing a sample of 20,956 observations of non-financial SMEs headquartered in the Euro area, between 2009 and 2015, we test whether young businesses are more likely to face credit rejections from lenders than their older peers. Our findings appear to confirm our suspicions that new...

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have difficulties in accessing finance because of information asymmetry and a lack of collateral. A credit guarantee scheme is a suitable method to unlock lending to SMEs; however, it involves SMEs paying a fee, which needs to account for their risk. The...

Certificates are widely used as a signaling mechanism to mitigate adverse selection when information is asymmetric. To reduce information asymmetry between lenders and borrowers, Chinese peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms encourage borrowers to obtain various kinds of credit certificates. As...

To make Asia more economically sustainable and resilient against external shocks, regional economies need to be rebalanced toward regional demand- and trade-driven growth through increased regional connectivity. The effectiveness of connectivity depends on the quality of hard and soft...

We provide an analysis of the housing market and current housing policies in three developed countries: the United Kingdom (UK), Switzerland, and the United States (US). We focus on these three countries mainly due to the marked differences in their institutional settings. The UK is...

There are increasing expectations of community-based financing for local renewable projects in Japan and in France: In both France and Japan, it has been about 10-20 years since the power market has been open to competition, where France is ahead, having fully liberalized its market to...

The process to introduce the idea of land readjustment to a number of Asian developing countries-mainly sponsored by the Japanese government-has been one of the most significant international collaborations in urban planning in the twentieth century. When such processes succeed, they can replace...

Many metropolitan cities in Asia are planning and implementing extensive investment in mass transit networks and thus are now on the threshold of becoming transit cities or car traffic saturation cities. The promotion of transit-oriented development (TOD) policies will be a key to the...

The growing trend of urban city development requires various infrastructure investments, including water supply, electricity, sanitation, transportation, and other supporting facilities. In facing this challenge, many Asian countries experience significant constraints, particularly on the issues...