Interest rate caps are widespread in consumer credit markets, yet there is limited evidence on its effects on market outcomes and welfare. Conceptually, the effects of interest rate caps are ambiguous and depend on a trade-off between consumer protection from banks' market power and reductions...

This paper introduces cashless stores and cashless consumers into a model of interchange fees. Under this modification, the interchange fee set by the card organization exceeds the optimal level. Furthermore, the gap between this fee and the optimal fee increases with the fraction of consumers...

Reforming regulation of the financial sector is currently among the most immediate concerns of domestic and international policymakers. Proposals for such reform are proliferating, and the official sector appears committed to adopting at least some meaningful reforms in the near-term. Broadly...

This study examines the effect of regulatory independence of the central bank in shaping the impact of electoral cycles on bank lending behaviour in Africa. It employs the dynamic system Generalized Method of Moments (SGMM) Two-Step estimator for a panel dataset of 54 African countries over the...

Rules designed to regulate capital markets and protect investors often have spillover effects, either negative or positive, on stakeholders other than investors. These stakeholders can include managers, employees, consumers, taxpayers, gatekeepers, vendors, and others. This raises a question as...

Market manipulation is a poorly understood phenomenon, due in part to legal standards that categorize manipulative behavior as either an act of outright fraud or as the nebulous use of market power to produce an artificial price. In this paper, we consider a third type of behavior that can...

In der wirtschaftswissenschaftlichen Literatur wird das ökonomische Potenzial von Immobilienverzehrprodukten vielseitig diskutiert. Obwohl diesen Produkten aus wohlfahrts-theoretischen Gesichtspunkten eine hohe Bedeutung beigemessen wird, zeigt die empirische Evidenz, dass die Nachfrage weit...

In der wirtschaftswissenschaftlichen Literatur wird das ökonomische Potenzial von Immobilienverzehrprodukten vielseitig diskutiert. Obwohl diesen Produkten aus wohlfahrtstheoretischen Gesichtspunkten eine hohe Bedeutung beigemessen wird, zeigt die empirische Evidenz, dass die Nachfrage weit...

We study the impact of ambiguity on two alternative institutions of financial intermediation in an economy where consumers face uncertain liquidity needs. The ambiguity the consumers experience is modeled by the degree of confidence in their additive beliefs. We analyze the optimal liquidity...