Eight states established deposit insurance systems between 1908 and 1917. All abandoned the systems between 1921 and 1930. Scholars debate the costs and benefits of these policy experiments. New data drawn from the archives of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors demonstrate that deposit...

For many self-employed poor in the developing world, entrepreneurship involves experimenting with new technologies and learning about oneself. This paper explores the (positive and normative) implications of learning for the practice of lending to the poor. The optimal lending contract...

We document that the fraction of entrepreneurs who work in the region where they were born is significantly higher than the corresponding fraction for dependent workers. This difference is more pronounced in more developed regions and positively related to the degree of local financial...

This Paper proposes a new measure of contagion that is good at anticipating future vulnerabilities. Building on previous work, it uses correlations of equity markets across countries to measure contagion, but in a departure from previous practice, measures contagion using the relationship of...

Foreign bank entry is frequently associated with spillover effects for local banks and increasing competition in the local banking market. We study the impact of these effects on host countries. In particular, we ask how these effects interact and how they depend on the competitive environment...

This paper considers three questions : (1) what is the role of financial markets in development, (2) why do some economies have such poorly developed financial markets, and (3) can government policy be used to promote financial market development?

Offshore Finance Centres (OFCs) have proliferated since the 1960s and many small jurisdictions and microstates around the world now host OFCs as part of the increasing globalisation of financial capital. This paper argues that microstates are becoming increasing vulnerable to forces outside of...

Many small island economies (SIEs) and micro-states host offshore finance centres (OFCs). Their low tax, minimalist regulatory regimes and bank secrecy make these OFCs highly attractive to global financial capitalism. The uneven relationship between transnational financial institutions operating...

History repeats the same story about financial crises every few years. High growth in domestic credit almost always guarantee the outbreak of a crisis. In normal times, growth in credit is generally associated with faster long run growth, however, as financial intermediation improves the...

Venture capitalists provide risk capital and valuable monitoring services that are essential for the success of upstart companies. The financial sector’s expertise in monitoring investment proposals may increase with the accumulated experience in funding such projects. In the other direction,...