This paper investigates the importance of having a sovereign credit rating for a country's financial development. After controlling for endogeneity and selection bias, we compare different aspects of the financial sector and the capital markets of recently rated countries with otherwise similar,...

We analyze how global and local factors affect portfolio allocation by euro area investors in emerging markets at the bond-level. First, cross-sectional analysis reveals a strong preference for home (Euro) currency bonds. Second, panel regressions, whether at the bond or aggregate flows level,...

Policymakers fear the potentially destabilizing impact of fickle global investors on emerging markets. Euro area investors are significant participants in emerging bond markets and exhibit volatile flows, but their fickleness does not result in indiscriminate periods of surge and flight....

We use a large sample of non-US banks to examine the propagation of the 2007-2009 crisis. Using both stock market and structural variables we test whether the relative incidence of the crisis was better explained by crisis models or by the VaR-type analysis of the Basel system. Consistent with...

Using a large sample of cross-border mergers we measure the effect of a change in location on systematic risk. When a target firm's location moves a large part of its systematic risk switches from being related to its home equity market to that of the acquirer. On average the change in betas is...

We use a large sample of non-US banks to examine the propagation of the 2007-2009 crisis. Using both stock market and structural variables we test whether the relative incidence of the crisis was better explained by crisis models or by the VaR-type analysis of the Basel system. Consistent with...