Global bonds are international securities designed to be traded and settled efficiently in multiple markets. This paper studies global bonds to examine the effects of multimarket trading on corporate bond liquidity, prices, and the cost of debt. Using a sample of primary and secondary market...

We study the effect of interbank market integration on small firm finance in the build-up to the 2007-2008 financial crisis. We use a comprehensive data set that contains contract terms on individual loans to 6,047 firms across 14 European countries between 1998:01 and 2005:12. We account for...

Standard economic models hold that exchange rates are influenced by fundamental variables such as relative money supplies, outputs, inflation rates and interest rates. Nonetheless, it has been well documented that such variables little help predict changes in floating exchange rates u0097 that...

This paper considers the role of foreign investors in developed-country equity markets. It presents a quantitative model of trading that is built around two new assumptions: (i) both the foreign and domestic investor populations contain investors of different sophistication, and (ii) investor...

The paper proposes a multi-factor international asset pricing model in which the exchange rate is allowed to be co-determined by a risk factor imperfectly correlated to other priced risks in the economy. The significance of this factor can be established as long as one is able to observe a proxy...

We examine the link between equity risk premiums and demographic changes using a very long sample over the whole twentieth century for the US, Japan, UK, Germany and France, and a shorter sample covering the last third of the twentieth century for fifteen countries. We find that demographic...

In this study we investigate the determinants of financing obstacles using survey data on a sample of around 5000 firms from the euro area countries. This completely new survey – started at the end of 2009 - gives us the opportunity to test whether firm characteristics such as size, age,...

Exchanges and other trading platforms are often vertically integrated to carry out trading, clearing and settlement as one operation. We show that such vertical silos can prevent efficiency gains from horizontal consolidation of trading and settlement platforms to be realized. Independent of the...

An unprecedented process of financial consolidation has taken place in the European Union over the past decade. Building on earlier US evidence, we examine the impact of strategic similarities between bidders and targets on post-merger financial performance. We find that, on average, bank...

The paper investigates small business lending as an information problem. It models the effects of information asymmetries within the bank combined with fixed wages. Two kinds of inefficiencies arise in equilibrium: the credit officer either sometimes shirks or he is occasionally fired. In both...