This study provides an overview of UK infrastructure investment and finance in an international context, yielding interesting facts insights for both investors and policy makers worldwide. The UK is one of the leading countries in terms of private sector involvement in infrastructure, with...

The global financial crisis triggered a vast number of new laws and regulations at international level, including initiatives that can be classified as "soft law". The legitimacy and efficacy of these new norms are subject to intensive academic and political debates. At the same time, soft law...

Federal and state laws allow U.S. financial conglomerates to own securities, insurance and depository institutions through a holding company structure. Before the recent crisis, the federal or state agency responsible for regulating a financial conglomerate as a whole was determined by what...

We investigate how investor protection, government quality, and contract enforcement affect risk-taking and performance of insurance companies from around the world. We find that better investor protection results in less risk-taking, as do higher quality government and greater contract...

The paper analyzes the use of credit default swaps (CDS) for regulatory capital relief and its consequences for systemic risk. Equity capital acts as a buffer against losses, and reduces incentives for excessive risk taking. Basel capital regulation states that banks can lower capital...

The global non-bank sector has experienced significant growth since the global financial crisis, raising concerns that this shift represents a financial stability risk. We consider the drivers of this growth in Sweden: a small, open economy whose non-bank sector has grown rapidly. In contrast...

On 11 March 2015, SUERF jointly organised a conference with the Oesterreichische Nationalbank and the Austrian Society for Bank Research (Bankwissenschaftliche Gesellschaft - BWG). The present SUERF Study 2015/2 includes a selection of papers based on the authors' contributions to the Vienna...

In this paper, we examine how the presence of country insurance schemes affects policymakers' incentives to undertake reforms. Such schemes (especially when made contingent on negative external shocks) are more likely to foster than to delay reform in crisis-prone volatile economies. The...

In this study we estimate the effect of terror on trade in financial services using the gravity model. In a sample of more than 60 importing and exporting countries from 2000 to 2014, we find robust evidence that terrorist attacks in either the importer or the exporter territory significantly...