The aim of the paper is twofold: to carry out a contingent valuation study of "Napoli Musei Aperti", a cultural public good provided by the city of Naples, and to explore some alternative schemes of cultural policy. The paper is divided in two parts. In the first one some results from the...

Although the overall economic performance of economies in South Asia in recent years has been impressive, there is concern that an aging and increasingly inadequate infrastructure may limit the potential for further growth and economic development. A critical infrastructure component is the...

We survey the theories of why banks promise to pay par on demand and examine evidence about the conditions under which banks have promised to pay the par value of deposits and banknotes on demand when holding only fractional reserves. The theoretical literature can be broadly divided into four...

We examine the evolution of decentralized clearinghouse mechanisms from the 13th to the 18th century; in particular, we explore the clearing of non- or limitedtradable debts like bills of exchange. We construct a theoretical model of these clearinghouse mechanisms, similar to the models in the...

This paper examines the historical origins of the bank-based financial systems in Germany and Japan and the market-based financial system in the US. It critically examines the "timing of industrialization" (TOI) thesis, i.e. the assertion that variation in the current structure of financial...

This paper argues that the banking crises in the United States in the early 1930s were similar to the ?twin crises? -- banking and balance of payments crises -- which have occurred in developing countries in recent years. The downturn that began in 1929 undermined banks that had made risky loans...

This paper examines the 1931 German banking crisis using a bank-level data set. It specifically focuses on the link between banking structure and financial stability. The universality of banks, a key characteristic of the German banking system, is shown to increase the probability of bank...