Initially, voting rights were limited to wealthy elites providing political support for stock markets. The franchise expansion induces the median voter to provide political support for banking development as this new electorate has lower financial holdings and benefits less from the uncertainty...

In this paper, we show that too strong investor protection may harm small firms and, thus, entrepreneurial initiatives. This situation is particularly relevant in crowdinvesting, which refers to a recent financial innovation originating on the Internet. In general, securities regulation offers...

We examine the impact of lead arrangers' reputation on the design of loan contracts such as spread and fees charged. Controlling for the non-randomness of the lender-borrower match (self-selection bias), we find that the reputation of top tier arrangers leads to higher spreads, and that top tier...

We examine the spread of UCITS funds around the world, and consider whether such mutual funds that adopt higher standards of voluntary investor protection expand their operations to other countries with higher or lower investor protection regimes. The data indicate equity funds spread to...