Abstract Purpose – Natural disasters may inflict significant damage upon international financial markets. The purpose of this study is to investigate if any contagion effect occurred in the immediate aftermath of the Japanese earthquake, tsunami and subsequent nuclear crisis....

This paper assesses how legal-origin influences financial development through regulation quality and the rule of law. It uses data collected after pioneering works on the law-finance nexus to assess hypotheses resulting there-from in the context of Africa. Distinctions are made between English,...

This paper cuts adrift the mainstream approach to the legal-origins debate on the law-growth nexus by integrating both overall economic and human components in our understanding of how regulation quality and the rule of law lie at the heart of economic and inequality adjusted human developments....

This paper examines how regionalization in the face of globalization has affected financial development in the context of banking system efficiency in Africa. Results which are robust to financial system efficiency and growth-led-finance nexus reveal that in the post-regionalization era: (1)...

This paper examines how domestic, foreign, private and public investments affect income-inequality through financial intermediary dynamics of depth, efficiency, activity and size. With the exception of financial allocation efficiency, financial channels of depth and activity are good for the...

Hitherto very few studies on the inequality-finance(investment) nexus have focused on the African continent owing to lack of relevant data. This paper integrates previously missing investment and financial components in the assessment of how finance affects pro-poor investment channels. Findings...

The rate of deforestation in Africa is of paramount concern not only to the future of Africa, but also to the world. This study uses country-level data to model changes in forest area over an 18 year period (1990-2007) in 35 African countries and investigates the role played by important...

Hitherto financial drivers of human development have been unexplored by the UNDP. This paper assesses determinants of human development from financial dynamics of depth, efficiency, size and activity on data from 38 developing countries. While the importance of financial activity, size and depth...

This paper sets a new tone in the legal origins debate with the overwhelming dominance of French civil-law countries in private investment: contrary to mainstream consensus where-in, English common-law countries are better at championing private property rights (La Porta et al., 1998; Beck et al,...

This paper assesses if legal origin explains domestic, foreign, private and public investments through financial intermediary channels of depth, efficiency, activity and size. Findings show that legal origin matters in the finance-investment nexus; though its ability to explain aggregate...