The authors investigate whether firms'access to external financing, to fund growth differs between market-based, and bank-based financial systems. Using firm-level data for forty countries, they compute the proportion of firms in each country that relies on external finance, and examine how that...

Firms often cite financing constraints as one of their primary obstacles to investment. Global capital flows, by bringing in scarce capital, may ease the financing constraints of host country firms. But if incoming foreign investors borrow heavily from domestic banks, foreign direct investment...

The author documents the precise costs of debt and equity issuance, both domestically and internationally, for firms in Brazil, Chile, and Mexico. Costs include investment banking and legal fees, regulatory and exchange listing costs, rating agency fees, and expenditures for marketing and...

The stimulation of private saving is essential to both stabilization and structural adjustment in the transition economies. Private saving in these countries has declined sharply since independence, and this decline has been a factor in the onset of extreme inflation because governments have...

The author investigates whether the credit channel is a key monetary transmission mechanism in the Republic of Korea, especially after its recent financial crisis. To identify the existence of a distinctive credit channel (especially the bank lending channel), he applies two empirical tests to...

Using bank data for 80 countries for 1988-95, the authors show that differences in interest margins and bank profitability reflect various determinants: bank characteristics, macroeconomic conditions, explicit and implicit bank taxes, regulation of deposit insurance, general financial structure,...

Weaknesses in the corporate sector have increasingly been cited as important factors in financial crises in both emerging markets and industrial countries. Analysts have pointed to weak corporate performance and risky financing patterns as major causes of the East Asian financial crisis. And...

In seeking funding, a firm's main choice is between external and internal financing. And, says the author, the evidence suggests that the stock market plays only a limited role providing finance for both U.S. and Indian firms. The author finds that internal finance plays less of a role for...

The authors show that capital inflows into the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)--inflows that are mainly private, debt-driven, and increasingly supplied by banks on a shortening maturity--are especially vulnerable to reversals. They show that the region's banking systems are...

Evidence about how choice of regulatory regimes affects the level of shareholder risk for the regulated company has traditionally focused on studies in the United Kingdom and the United States. Broad comparisons of price-cap based regimes (as practiced in the UK) with rate-of-return regulation...