We study the interactions of banks and ?rms within a leverage cycle to understand how capacity utilisation and capital investment interact with funding costs, leverage by banks and ?rms, and liquidity. We show in a simulation study that when ?rms can grow and die by becoming insolvent, and when...

The first appearance of a reference to a Bourbaki mathematical result was the spoof by D.D. Kosambi, published in the first volume of the Bulletin of the Academy of Sciences of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, eighty years ago, although it was not the first reference to Bourbaki in a...

We survey the main applications of algorithmic (Kolmogorov) complexity to the problem of price dynamics in financial markets. We stress the differences between these works and put forward a general algorithmic framework in order to highlight its potential for financial data analysis. This...

Limited liability has been seen as crucial for the development of capital markets. In this paper I use the CAPM to analyze how a company is priced differently under different liability regimes. I reach the conclusion that as far as the pricing and liquidity of shares is concerned, the positive...

In this paper I have analysed the development of company law from 1720 through to 1857. During this long period of time, company law assumed the characteristics it has now. At the starting point, company law stood with incorporation granted by the Crown or Parliament on one side and partnership...

As the recent crisis has forcefully suggested, understanding financial-market interconnectedness is of a paramount importance to explain systemic risk, stability and economic dynamics. In this paper, we address these issues along two related perspectives. First, we explore the statistical...

This paper explores the topological structure of the network of trade in textiles and clothing (T&C) that were governed by the multi-fibre arrangement (MFA)—a quantitative restriction on developing countries’ exports to developed countries. Trade relations between small remote island...

In the last two decades social capital has become one of the most analyzed and cited concepts in the social sciences. On the one hand it is a powerful idea, used to explain a very wide set of socioeconomic phenomena. On the other hand social capital is disputed and ambiguous: there are a number...

The paper analyzes how (production and financial) inter-firm networks can affect firms' default probabilities and observed default rates: an issue the recent crisis has brought to the front of the debate. A simple theoretical model of shock transfer is built up to investigate some stylized facts...