This paper analyses the role that institutional factors play in explaining differences in the capital structure of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across regions belonging to a single country. Specifically, it studies the effect of the development of the financial sector and of the...

Economist usually think and work taking into account the temporal dimension of economic and financial processes. Time plays a key role in the economic decision making process and is a fundamental input for statistical models useful to analyze and predict social behavior. Thus time invades our...

The so-called European model of market integration has evolved over many decades. In particular, the original plan to integrate Europe economically via a progressive program of harmonizing national legislation has, particularly in the area of financial markets, given way to a radical alternative...

We measure the competitive effect of public ownership of banks in concentrated local banking markets in Brazil by extending Bresnahan and Reiss’s [1991] framework to measure the effects of entry in concentrated markets. We use variation in market size, the number of competitors and their...

As emphasised in the beginning, the considerations presented here are very preliminary by nature. Nevertheless, some of the aspects discussed seem worth summarising. First, financial markets worldwide show a tendency of asymmetric regional " clustering" with newly emerging places challenging the...

At the turn of the century, the role of culture in society is changing. One facet of this change is the relation between culture and finance. Globalisation has led to an increasing competition between financial centres worldwide and culture has become one determinant of competitiveness. But,...

Japan's markets for money, capital and foreign exchange are among the biggest worldwide. For many years, Tokyo's role as the leading financial center in Asia has been unchallenged. However, recently, other places in the region such as Singapore and Hong Kong have invested heavily to strengthen...

An der Londoner Wertpapierbörse wurden am 27. Oktober 1986 eine Reihe von Wettbewerbsbeschränkungen aufgehoben. Dies wird als "Big Bang" bezeichnet. Seither dürfen die Wertpapierhändler gleichzeitig als Vermittler für Anleger wie auch als Händler auf eigene Rechnung tätig werden. Die...

Die rund siebzig Steueroasen weltweit sind unter Druck geraten. Der deutsche Finanzminister drohte im Sommer 2009 der Schweiz mit Kavallerie; ein weiteres Abkommen mit Liechtenstein ist unterzeichnet; die G 20 streben eine bessere Aufsicht über Steuer- und Regulierungsoasen an; und auch...