The level of financial development is an important determinant of the performance of capital markets. We examine stock returns in a cross section of emerging and mature markets (49 countries) over 1980-99. Returns in financially underdeveloped countries have been somewhat lower, but...

In recent years, regulators have increased their focus on the capital adequacy of banking institutions to enhance the stability of the financial system. The purpose of the present paper is to shed some light on whether and how Swiss Banks react to constraints placed by the regulator on their...

Reuters reports have become an accepted tool for empirical studies analyzing informationa l asymmetries in exchange rate markets. This paper tests the accuracy of the Reuters announcements for Swiss interventions. The evidence finds that the Reuters announcements are not concentrated just after...

We investigate how bank migration across state lines over the last quarter century has affected the size and covariance of business fluctuations within states. Starting with a two-state version of the unit banking model in Holmstrom and Tirole (1997), we conclude that the theoretical effect of...

This paper proposes a new procedure for shock identification of macroeconomic forecasts based on factor analysis. Our identification scheme for information shocks relies on data reduction techniques for daily panels and the recognition that macroeconomic releases exhibit a high level of...

Does offcial aid pave the road for private foreign investment or does it suffocate private initiative by diverting resources towards unproductive activities? In this paper we explore this question using data for a large number of developing and emerging economies. Controlling for countries’...

The uncovered interest rate parity equation is the cornerstone of most models in international macro. However, this equation does not hold empirically since the forward discount, or interest rate dierential, is negatively related to the subsequent change in the exchange rate. This forward...

While empirical evidence finds only a weak relationship between nominal exchange rates and macroeconomic fundamentals, forex markets participants often attribute exchange rate movements to a macroeconomic variable. The variables that matter, however, appear to change over time and some variable...

We address two questions about the impact of the UBS-SBC merger: (i) How will the concentration in the Swiss retail banking market change, and (ii) what are the expected consequences for the consumers. The answer to the first question is based on a comparison of Herfindahl and C3-indices in 1997...