This article investigates the profitability of Japanese banks following the major financial crisis that affected the country's economy in the mid-1990s. Further, it examines the determinants of bank profitability for a sample of banks with different ownership structures (City, Trust, Regional,...

The “distance effect” measuring the elasticity of trade flows to distance has been to be rising since the early 1970s in a host of studies based on the gravity model, leading observers to call it the “distance puzzle”. We review the evidence and explanations. Using an extensive data set...

The current postcrisis environment—and fragile economic recovery—increases the importance of aid for trade. Global rebalancing and tightened fiscal budgets in the short to medium term also place renewed emphasis on aid effectiveness. This note identifies four options to enhance the...

This unique Handbook explores both the economics of the firm and the theory of the firm, two areas which are traditionally treated separately in the literature. On the one hand, the former refers to the structure, organization and boundaries of the firm, while the latter is devoted to the...

There have been a number of high profile food safety disputes in trade over the past decade. These include the widely publicized case at the World Trade Organization between the US and EU over hormone-treated beef. In particular, consumers in some industrialized countries have expressed concern...

Three panel unit root tests are applied to a 31-year firm size, growth and profit rate data set for 96 large, quoted UK firms. All tests reject the unit root null for log size if the Augmented Dickey Fuller autoregressions exclude a linear time trend. If a linear trend is included, the results...

Recent stock price movements have led to a re-examination of the present value model. Typically, empirical studies have employed a long span of US stock market index data, and have attributed a failure to detect cointegration to the presence of bubbles. This study considers UK firm-level data,...