Macroeconomic imbalances in the EMU are at the heart of the current crisis. A widely popular explanation for the high current account deficits in the Southern European countries is that they lack a large, competitive and export-oriented industrial sector. The paper tests the hypothesis that...

This paper aims at providing some analysis and thoughts for the formulation of European and Central Asian (ECA) region financial sector development strategy through a review of the financial sector reform and development experiences in ECA as well as in some other regions of the world

This paper aims to show the impact of financial variables on the process of convergence between selected European Union and Balkan countries. Indeed, after a delay in the realization of structural changes – result of historical legacy and circumstances in which the transition process took...

This paper investigates the effect of financial development on the incentives to form business groups. We examine how this relation varies across exogenous industry conditions, legal environments, and firms' life cycle. Using a comprehensive dataset on group affiliation of European firms, we...

Since the information and communications technology revolution, productivity growth in Southern European countries has been substantially lower than in developed European countries. I document that Spanish firms have lower productivity growth, lower intangible capital growth, and lower leverage...

This study constructs a simple model demonstrate that life insurance and banking development simultaneously affect economic growth. We thereby provide empirical evidence on the model’s critical prediction. By analyzing a panel data for 17 advanced European countries from 1980 to 2015, the...

China has been accused exchange rate manipulation that has caused large U.S. trade deficits, which have reduced U.S. welfare by increasing unemployment and reducing wages. In addition, the strong claims by some observers that the trade imbalances are deeply deleterious to China's welfare almost...