What risks do asset price bubbles pose for the economy? This paper studies bubbles in housing and equity markets in 17 countries over the past 140 years. History shows that not all bubbles are alike. Some have enormous costs for the economy, while others blow over. We demonstrate that what makes...

This study investigates the legitimacy of the relatively high interest rates charged by those microfinance institutions (MFIs) which have been transformed into regulated commercial banks using information garnered from a panel of 1232 MFIs from 107 developing countries. Results show that...

The equity premium is a key parameter in asset allocation policies. There is a vigorous debate in the literature regarding the actual measurement of the equity premium, its size and the determinants of its variation. This study aims to take stock of this literature by means of a meta-analysis....

Using long time series for sovereign bond markets of fifteen industrialized economies from 1875 to 2009, I find that financial market integration by the end of the 20th century was higher than in earlier periods and exhibited a J-shaped trend with a trough in the 1920s. The main reason for the...

Economists in the public are accused of propagating highly professional, but unrealistic theories that mislead market agents and policy makers to place too much confidence in rational behaviour and market equilibrium. The paper analyses to what extent the US banking crisis and the euro crisis...

Two separate narratives have emerged in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis. One speaks of private financial excess and the key role of the banking system in leveraging and deleveraging the economy. The other emphasizes the public sector balance sheet over the private and worries about the...

Seit vier Jahren kämpfen die Staaten des Euroraums gegen die Hinterlassenschaften der schweren Finanz- und Wirtschaftskrise an. Aber noch immer steigen die Schuldenquoten. Für die Krisenstaaten des Euroraums wurde zwar mit Rettungspaketen und Niedrigzinsen Zeit erkauft. Aber solange sich die...

This paper introduces a new high frequency time series of Confederate money prices taken from the newspapers of Richmond and leading cities in the Eastern Confederacy. The new Grayback series is tested for "turning points." The empirical analysis suggests that "turning points" in the Confederate...

Confederate Treasury notes were convertible into government bonds at par. This provided an imbedded option value for the currency. Confederate interest-rate policy encouraged, and ultimately coerced, holders of Treasury notes to exchange these notes for bonds by imposing deadlines on their...

On April 1, 1864 the Confederate Currency Reform Act reduced the money supply in the Eastern Confederacy by one third. The delayed implementation of the reform west of the Mississippi provides a counterfactual view of what may have happened in the east had the reform not been enacted. This...