I develop a method to measure and separate the production misallocation caused by failures in factor markets versus financial markets. When I apply the method to rice farming villages in Thailand I find surprisingly little misallocation. Optimal reallocation would increase output in most...

Regulators aiming to ward off the next financial market failure need to implement rules to smooth the boom-bust cycle in margin requirements and haircuts used in securities financing and derivative transactions, which seriously exacerbated the last financial crisis. In this study, the author...

Why do some economic systems depend on bank financing while others rely on capital markets and bond financing? We propose a political economy model in which elites favor a bank-based system, which increases their rents due to reduced competition. If suffrage is restricted to the elite, this will...

This paper is a preliminary exploration of the politics of financial market development. Using panel data for 197 countries over 34 years, we test a range of variables and hypotheses regarding the politics of financial market development. We find only weak support for the legal origins...

Political economy theories of financial development argue that in countries where a narrow elite controls political decisions, financial development may be obstructed to deny access to finance to potential competitors. We use panel data on developed and developing countries from 1975ndash;2000...

Empirical studies of Latin American finance suggest that domestic capital markets are less developed than expected in light of the region's economic fundamentals. One of several potential causes for this underdevelopment may be tied to the dominance of the 'grupos', family-controlled business...

This chapter surveys the literature on the political economy of finance. This field offers three main insights. First, it highlights the importance of the role of political institutions in financial development. Second, it shows how the distribution of political power in society drives the...

Poland’s productivity has grown strongly over the past two decades. However, the public and private capital stock is weak, and investment remains focused on the adoption of existing technologies, which weighs on future productivity gains and innovation. Many micro enterprises have low...

The deferred recognition of COVID-induced losses at banks in many countries hasreignited the debate on regulatory forbearance. This paper presents a model where thepublic's own political pressure drives regulatory policy astray, because the public is poorlyinformed. Using probabilistic game...