This paper introduces the concept of the financial possibility frontier as a constrained optimum level of financial development to gauge the relative performance of financial systems across the globe. This frontier takes into account structural country characteristics, institutional, and...

“Everybody talks about financial innovation, but (almost) nobody empirically tests hypotheses about it” Frame and White (2004).The financial turmoil from 2007 onwards has spurred renewed debates on the “bright” and “dark” sides of financial innovation. Using bank-, industry- and...

“Everybody talks about financial innovation, but (almost) nobody empirically tests hypotheses about it”. Frame and White (2004)The financial turmoil from 2007 onwards has spurred renewed debates on the “bright” and “dark” sides of financial innovation. Using bank-, industry- and...

This paper presents new data on the depth and penetration of mortgage markets across countries. We find a large variation across both dimensions of mortgage market development, both across countries but also – in terms of depth – within countries. Mortgage markets seem to develop only at...

This paper introduces the concept of the financial possibility frontier as a constrained optimum level of financial development to gauge the relative performance of financial systems across the globe. This frontier takes into account structural country characteristics, institutional, and...

This paper proposes a structural econometric approach to estimating the basic reproduction number (R0) of Covid-19. This approach identifies R0 in a panel regression model by filtering out the effects of mitigating factors on disease diffusion and is easy to implement. We apply the method to...