This paper shows that firms from financial centres are more likely to go public than their provincial counterparts. The financial centre bias is analysed for 32 countries, including the European Union, the USA and Japan. It is particularly strong in countries with underdeveloped stock markets...

The Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC) was launched on 1 January 2018. It is envisaged that the AIFC will create an attractive environment for various financial activities. To accomplish this goal, one major feature of the AIFC is that it will operate an independent legal regime based...