We study whether Russian Financial-Industrial Groups facilitate access by Russianfirms to investment finance. We compare firms which are members of official FinancialIndustrial Groups and/or are owned by a large Russian bank with a control set of large firmscategorized by dispersed ownership...

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...

We study a politician's choice for state or private control of banks. The choice trades of lobbying contributions against social welfare, weighted by political accountability.Politicians facing few constraints prefer state control to maximize their rents. As state banks are less efficient, at...

This paper investigates whether privatization in emerging economies has a significant indirect effect on local stock market development through the resolution of political risk. We argue that a sustained privatization program represents a major political test that gradually resolves uncertainty...

We investigate the valuation of platform investment, such as asoftware operating system or anInternet portal WebPage. Platform investment is the creation of aninnovative distribution andproduction infrastructure, which increases access to customers; as aresult it reduces entry costs inrelated...

We analyze how a wealth shift to emerging countries may lead to instability in developed countries. Investors exposed to expropriation risk are willing to pay a safety premium to invest in countries with good property rights. Domestic intermediaries compete for such cheap funding by carving out...

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...