Abstract Purpose – Natural disasters may inflict significant damage upon international financial markets. The purpose of this study is to investigate if any contagion effect occurred in the immediate aftermath of the Japanese earthquake, tsunami and subsequent nuclear crisis....

The recent waves of political crises in Africa and the Middle East have inspired the debate over how political instability could pose a risk of financial contagion to emerging countries. With retrospect to the Kenyan political crisis, our findings suggest stock markets in Lebanon, Mauritius and...

Financial development indicators are often applied to countries/regions without taking into account specific financial development realities. Financial depth in the perspective of monetary base is not equal to liquid liabilities in every development context. This paper introduces complementary...

Natural disasters may inflict significant damage upon international financial markets. Using 33 international stock indexes and exchange rates, this paper examines if any contagion occurred across financial markets after the March 11, 2011 Japanese earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis. Using...

This paper sets a new tone in the legal origins debate with the overwhelming dominance of French civil-law countries in private investment: contrary to mainstream consensus where-in, English common-law countries are better at championing private property rights (La Porta et al., 1998; Beck et al,...

This paper assesses if legal origin explains domestic, foreign, private and public investments through financial intermediary channels of depth, efficiency, activity and size. Findings show that legal origin matters in the finance-investment nexus; though its ability to explain aggregate...

This paper examines how domestic, foreign, private and public investments affect income-inequality through financial intermediary dynamics of depth, efficiency, activity and size. With the exception of financial allocation efficiency, financial channels of depth and activity are good for the...

Hitherto very few studies on the inequality-finance(investment) nexus have focused on the African continent owing to lack of relevant data. This paper integrates previously missing investment and financial components in the assessment of how finance affects pro-poor investment channels. Findings...

The rate of deforestation in Africa is of paramount concern not only to the future of Africa, but also to the world. This study uses country-level data to model changes in forest area over an 18 year period (1990-2007) in 35 African countries and investigates the role played by important...

This paper proposes and empirically validates four theories of why legal origin influences growth and welfare through finance. It is a natural extension of “Law and finance: why does legal origin matter?” by Thorsten Beck, Asli Demirgüç-Kunt and Ross Levine (2003). We find only partial...