We propose a regulatory approach for restricting debt financing as an amplification mechanism across the financial system. A small stylised model illustrates the trade-off between static and time varying limits on leverage in dampening the financial cycle. The policy section proposes its...

The recent financial crisis has demonstrated that a failure of Systemically Important Financial Institutions (SIFIs) could seriously damage the stability of the financial system. A precise and consistent definition of a SIFI is pivotal to ensure efficient and effective regulation of the global...

Since World War II, direct stock ownership by households has largely been replaced by indirect stock ownership by financial institutions. We argue that tax policy is the driving force. Using long time-series from eight countries, we show that the fraction of household ownership decreases with...

This paper shows that the finance and growth relationship is as important in resource-based economies as in other economies. This paper also documents less developed financial systems in resource-based economies and banks that are more liquid, better capitalized and more profitable, but give...

This paper examines a topic of much interest, the association of financial architecture and national equity premia for recent eight-year period from fifteen emerging-market countries. Modeling simultaneously our estimate of the ex ante equity premium as a dependent variable and our measure of...

We apply the new panel convergence methodology developed by Phillips and Sul (Econometrica, 2007) on thirteen financial development indices from the World Bank's Financial Development and Structure database, to test for financial system convergence across a large set of industrial and developing...

The recent financial crisis has generated many distinct perspectives from various quarters. In this article, I review a diverse set of 21 books on the crisis, 11 written by academics, and 10 written by journalists and one former Treasury Secretary. No single narrative emerges from this broad and...

The financial crisis has revealed fatal institutional and structural deficits at the finance market. Politics has reacted to the financial crisis with a sea of legal bills and regulations. But all regulating efforts are merely system-imminent reparation measures and do not solve the core...

This paper analyzes the life cycles of hedge funds. Using the Lipper TASS database it provides category and fund specific factors that affect the survival probability of hedge funds. The findings show that in general, investors chasing individual fund performance, thus increasing fund flows,...

In the study of economic and financial panel data it is often important to differentiate between time-series and cross-sectional effects. We present two estimation procedures that can do so and illustrate their application by examining international variations in expected equity premia and...