During the last years, gravity equations have leapt from the trade literature over into the literature on financial markets. Martin and Rey (2004) were the first to provide a theoretical model for cross-border asset trade, yielding a structural gravity equation that could be tested empirically....

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...