This paper estimates an early warning system for predicting systemic banking crises in a sample of low income countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Since the average duration of crises in this sample of countries is longer than one year, the predictive performance of standard binomial logit models is...

This paper estimates an early warning system (EWS) for predicting systemic banking crises in a sample of low income countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Since the average duration of crises in this sample of countries is longer than one year, the predictive performance of standard binomial logit...

The purpose of this paper is to study the dynamics of growth and convergence in Spain for the period 1965-1995. We analyse the evolution of the per capita income distribution across Spanish provinces and estimate the effects on this evolution of factors such as private, human and public capital,...

This paper describes the main findings of a survey of SME financing in four East African countries, namely Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. We find that the SME segment is a strategic priority for the banks in the region. SMEs are considered a profitable business prospect and provide an...

African development finance institutions (DFIs) can play an important role in addressing market failures in credit markets. However, in spite of their importance, very little is known about them. This paper contributes to fill this gap by assessing the compliance of African DFIs with...

This paper uses a panel of annual observations for 198 banks in 19 Middle East and North Africa countries over 2001-12 to develop an early warning system for forecasting bank insolvency based on a multivariate logistic regression framework. The results show that the traditional CAMEL indicators...

Motivated by the recent debate on the macroeconomic implications of the new bank regulatory standards known as Basel III, this paper examines the impact of higher capital ratios on aggregate output in a comprehensive panel of African economies. We quantify benefits stemming from lower...

We study the role of age, re-election, gender, education, profession, party affiliation, area of election and different electoral systems on the political survival of 7127 members of the Italian Chamber of Deputies and Senate, observed from 1946 to 2013. Our results suggest that theories...