The study applies an adjusted growth diagnostic approach to identify the actual binding constraint on financing growth in the West Balkan countries. This group of economies includes combined structural and systemic transformation problems. The results of the analysis indicate that the binding...

This paper studies how the socialpolitical and judicial factors have affected private investment in Venezuela and Latin America for the period 1995-2003 by means of panel data analysis. In the case of Venezuela, there is evidence that the fall in the investment rate in Venezuela has been caused...

Basis risk – the remaining risk that an insured individual faces – is widely acknowledged as the Achilles Heel of index insurance, but to date there has been no direct study of its role in determining demand for index insurance. Further, spatiotemporal variation leaves open the possibility...

This paper uses a novel experimental design to study the effect of hypothetical personal experience on the adoption of a new insurance product in rural China. Specifically, we conduct a set of insurance games with a random subset of farmers. Our findings show that playing insurance games...

The volatility of exchange rates leads to a reduction of international trade volumes, especially in emerging economies including the South Mediterranean countries. This study discusses the impact of exchange rates on bilateral South- North trade flows, which comes timely after the increased...

Index insurance products circumvent many of the transaction costs and asymmetric information problems that obstruct provision of low value conventional insurance policies in developing countries. Recent years have seen tremendous growth in index insurance pilots in developing countries, but...

This paper examines the role of rising housing prices and borrowing constraints as determinants of China's high household saving rate, especially among young households. Using a life-cycle model of saving behavior in the presence of borrowing constraints, we show that the relationship between...

This paper investigates the effect of FDI on economic growth conditional on the institutional quality of host countries. We consider institutional heterogeneity to be an explanation for the mixed results of previous empirical studies and we develop several arguments to show that institutional...

Loan refusal has been a problem facing many loan applicants at the household level and this problem is not new to loan applicants in Ghana. Despite this knowledge, researchers passively discuss loan refusal and do not consider the intensity of this problem. This study analyses the effect of...

Robust economic development is not possible without financial deepening more especially in rural community where vast majority of the populace of Less Developed Countries (LDCs) resides. This paper analyses the impact of rural financial development on economic growth of Nigeria. The study uses...