November 1999 - Crossing national borders adds significantly to price dispersion. This study of prices in Japan and the United States finds that a substantial part of that border effect is attributable to distance, shipping costs, exchange rates, and relative variability in wages. Parsley and...

This paper reviews the Japanese experience with “put guarantees” recently offered in the sale of several failed banks. These guarantees, meant to address information asymmetry problems, are shown to create moral hazard problems of their own. In particular, the guarantees make acquiring banks...

In the fall of 1998, two important financial regulatory reform acts were passed in Japan. The first of these acts, the Financial Recovery Act, created a bridge bank scheme and provided funds for the resolution of failed banks. The second act, the Rapid Revitalization Act, provided funds for the...

This paper examines episodes of banking sector distress for a large sample of developed and developing countries, highlighting the experience of Japan. By a host of criteria, Japan appeared to be in a stronger position than most countries at the onset of banking problems - low inflation,...

This paper compares the performance of a convoy banking system, similar to that which prevailed in Japan, to a fixed-premium deposit insurance regime. Under this system, failed banks are merged with healthy banks, rather than closed, so that the banking system itself provides the safety net for...

In this paper, we examine the foreign exchange exposure of a sample of U.S. and Japanese banking firms. Using daily data, we construct estimates of the exchange rate sensitivity of the equity returns of the U.S. bank holding companies and compare them to those of a sample of Japanese banks. We...

This paper investigates the relative influence of US and Japanese real interest rates in the determination of local Pacific Rim rates, where influence is defined by the presence of common stochastic trends. Furthermore, the degree to which long run real interest parity holds is examined. The...

Disclosure is widely regarded as a necessary condition for market discipline in a modern financial sector. However, the determinants of disclosure decisions are still unknown, particularly among banks. This paper investigates the determinants of disclosure by Japanese Shinkin banks in 1996 and...

Previous studies, investigating how the market in general viewed the impact of a big earthquake (e.g., the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area) on insurance firm values, found a positive reaction of insurers' stock prices. This "gaining from loss" may be caused by the...