We develop a model of endogenous lobby formation in which wealth inequalityand political accountability undermine entry and financial development. In-cumbents seek a low level of effective investor protection to prevent potentialentrants from raising capital. They succeed because they can...

This survey reviews the literature on the political economy of financial structure, broadly defined to include the size of capital markets and banking systems as well as the distribution of access to external finance across firms.The theoretical literature on the institutional basis for...

Entry requires external finance, especially for less wealthy entrepreneurs, so poor investor protection limits competition. We model how incumbents lobby harder to block access to finance to entrants when politicians are less accountable to voters. In a broad cross-section of countries and...

On November 14th, 2014, SUERF – The European Money and Finance Forum – and CNMV, Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores – the Spanish Authority for supervision of securities markets – jointly organized a conference in Madrid: Challenges in Securities Markets Regulation: Investor...

We empirically identify exploratory evidence suggesting the potential for establishing an international corporate governance law protecting investors in relation to the outside directors on the board. Our conclusions are consistent with the principles proposed by OECD in 2004. Our study...

Here, we use a sample of firms from 30 countries during the period 1995-2013 to examine the relationship between net operating working capital (NWC) and firm value. Specifically, we show that the value of NWC varies across countries and that it depends on both investor protection and a country's...

In the last dozen years, economists have produced a considerable body of research suggesting that the historical origin of a country’s laws is highly correlated with a broad range of its legal rules and regulations, as well as with economic outcomes. Much of this research has dealt with rules...

This study investigates the non-discretionary determinants of bank loan loss provisions in Africa after controlling for macroeconomic fluctuation, financial development and investor protection. We find that non-performing loans, loan-to-asset ratio and loan growth are significant...

An all-inclusive financial system is one of the channels through which information and communication technology (ICT) affects economic growth. Digital financial inclusion is an evolving phenomenon that enhances the ease of access to and availability of formal financial services. Further,...

We develop a macroeconomic model with a moral hazard problem between financial intermediaries and households, which causes inefficient resource allocation, to make us reconsider the financial regulation according to financial development, and individual and aggregate economic activities in the...