Abstract: Theoretical and empirical research has shown that a sound and effective financial system is critical for economic development and growth. The financial system, however, is also subject to boom and bust cycles and fragility, with negative repercussions for the real economy. Further, the...

We develop a dynamic network model whose links are governed by banks' optimizing decisions and by an endogenous tâtonnement market adjustment. Banks in our model can default and engage in firesales: risk is trasmitted through direct and cascading counterparty defaults as well as through...

Start-up firms often face difficulties in raising external funds. Employing a unique panel dataset covering 9,715 start-up firms over the period 2007-2009, we find that high-tech startups are less likely to use bank finance and face more difficulties in raising bank finance than low-tech...

We analyze why formal credit, informal credit, and both types of credits coexist as consumer choices. We construct a model in which the households pay a fixed cost to access each type of market and face a market particular interest rate. The model induces a cost curve that defines an optimal,...

This paper compares two different types of private retirement plans from the perspective of a representative beneficiary: a defined benefit (DB) and a defined contribution (DC) plan. While salary risk is the main common risk factor in DB and DC pension plans, one of the key differences is that...

Some writers on Islamic finance have recently resuscitated the old ‘no risk, no gain’ precept from the earlier literature in the wake of 2007-2008 financial crisis. They argue that the basic reason for the recurrence of such crises is the conventional interest-based financial system that...

The majority of microfinance impact studies focus on finding their effect on a specific group of beneficiaries, in contrast we aim to identify the impact on whole economies (economic growth, and financial sector development and reductions in income inequalities), which is an important policy...

Banking sector is one of the fastest growing sectors in India. Today’s banking sector becoming more complex. The objective of this study is to analyze the Financial Position and Performance of the Bank of Baroda and Punjab National Bank in India based on their financial characteristics. This...

If there are diseconomies of scale in asset management, any predictability in mutual fund performance will be arbitraged away by rational investors seeking funds with the highest expected performance (Berk and Green, 2004). In contrast, the performance of equity mutual funds persists through...

We build a model of mutual fund competition in which a fraction of investors ("unsophisticated") exhibit a preference for familiarity. Funds differ both in their quality and their visibility: While unsophisticated investors have varying degrees of familiarity with respect to more visible funds,...