This paper examines the role of collateral in the rural credit market of an emerging country. Due to opaque information and weak enforcement, the need for collateral is expected to be high. However, rural households usually lack adequate assets to pledge as collateral. How is this puzzle solved?...

Sovereign defaults enable the defaulting countries to eliminate its debt, which raises the question why sovereign debt can exist, given that lenders fear losing their money. Thus, a cost burden must exist for a country in order to achieve the government paying its debt. Historically, sovereign...

The enlargement of the European Union to 25 members implies that relative position of Andalusia will improve with regard to the new GDP per capita average. This fact may derive a reduction in structural funds support for this Spanish region objective 1. This paper is focused in the ex-post...

It would seem that physical currency should be fading out as the world of payments is increasingly electronic, with new technologies emerging at a rapid pace, and as governments look to restrictions on large-denomination notes as a way to reduce crime and tax evasion. Nonetheless, demand for...

Recent aspects of European and global economy reveals that consumer demand for organic products is growing and this provides the opportunity to develop a sustainable agriculture. However, while there is a visible new approach in all European countries on the management of organic farming, there...

I analyze the effects of ethnic divisions on the provision of public goods. Using OpenStreetMap data, I construct a new global dataset of locations of public amenities, such as schools, hospital and libraries. I allow for the possibility that the data may be systematically incomplete using two...

This paper provides new evidence on the sustainability of public finances in German states (Laender) by exploiting a newly compiled database covering the years 1950-2011. Unlike previous studies on Germany, we analyze fiscal sustainability by applying second generation panel cointegration...

This work analyzes the evolution of real public expenditures of local and regional administrations (LRA), in Portugal, in the period after the Second World War. It also aims to estimate the elasticities associated to determinants, which explain the found growth. As most relevant results, it is...

From to beginning of year 2002, the Spanish Autonomous Communities (CC. AA.) fiscal performance is conditioned by a new legal framework compounded from the financial agreement and the legislation on budget stability. This new framework implies a change in the CC. AA. fiscal behaviour. Are the...

The main objective of this paper is to provide a general analysis of the evolution of the funding models of the Spanish Autonomous Communities (regional level) during the last decade and explore the main achievements of the new model (2001). In particular, the funding models that have been...