Foreword -- Robert M. Solow -- Introduction -- Financial crises: a hardy perennial -- The anatomy of a typical crisis -- Speculative manias -- Fueling the flames : the expansion of credit -- The critical stage : when the bubble is about to pop -- Euphoria and paper wealth -- Bernie madoff :...

"This paper contributes to the literature on how a country's legal origin influences the operation of its financial system by using firm-level survey data on the obstacles that firms face in raising external finance. The paper assesses two channels through which legal origin may influence the...

A country's legal origin—whether British, French, German, or Scandinavian—helps explain the development of its financial institutions today. Legal systems differ in their ability to facilitate private exchanges and to adapt to support new financial and commercial transactions. A country...