We use daily transactional ledger data from the Bank of England's Archive to test whether and to what extent the Bank of England during the mid-nineteenth century adhered to Walter Bagehot's rule that a central bank in a financial crisis should lend cash freely at a high interest rate in...

This paper studies the design of lawmaking and law enforcement institutions based on the premise that law is inherently incomplete. Under incomplete law, law enforcement by courts may suffer from deterrence failure. As a potential remedy a regulatory regime is introduced. The major functional...

Basically, shadow banking is an original kind of business organization, or better a set of institutions and markets, finalized to disinvest fixed assets and convey them to the financial markets. Nowadays, tackling the subject means penetrating the hard core of financialization. Shadow banking...

Financial crises are common within the modern financial system. The world has witnessed several significant financial crises since the '80s. In most cases, these crises have always led to an economic crisis that causes significant turbulence and severe sufferings for people around the world. The...

Usurers have been the first step to financial intermediation. Standing as financial intermediaries, they were carrying out the high risk not to be refunded the money granted as loans. But this high risk has always been remunerated by a high interest rate on loans granted. Banks institutions, as...

This paper elucidates the key debates surrounding the optimal design of financial systems and institutions: bank-based versus market-based; universal versus specialized banking; relationship versus arms-length banking. The paper also examines the historical pattern of financial system development...

There is a paucity of facts about the effects of the recent military Surge on conditions in Iraq and whether it is paving the way for a stable Iraq. Selective, anecdotal and incomplete analyses abound. Policy makers and defense planners must decide which measures of success or failure are most...

Recent development of the financial markets in Colombia, emphasizes the importance of relation between local markets and the world economy. The portafolio theory says that the conformation of efficient portafolio has to combine assets of different risk to get the maximun expect profit, taking on...

This paper reviews the research literature concerning financial repression. The paper then presents an empirical measure for financial repression in the US banking system entitled “The Financial Repression Index,” drawing upon public data going back to the early 1980s The paper draws some...

Governments have a substantial influence on the allocation of resources in setting the rules of the game of financial markets. However, up to now, institutional economics and the theory of financial markets are totally separated research areas. To close this analytical gap, our paper connects...