During the last two decades, the degree of openness of national financial systems has increased substantially. At the same time, asymmetries in information and other financial market frictions have remain prevalent. We study both empirically and theoretically the implications of the opening up...

Globalization has affected the integration of markets through many different channels, including movements of factors and trade in goods. From a theoretical point of view, the interaction between the different channels of integration can take different forms. The aim of this paper is to analyze...

The EU has recently entered accession talks with five transition economies of eastern Europe. Membership in the EU would require inter alia the full liberalization of capital flows. This paper provides empirical evidence on the openness towards foreign capital that the accession states have...

Information costs and regulatory barriers are the main distinguishing features of international financial markets as compared to national financial markets. This paper presents a simple model of the impact of these factors on banksÂ’ cross-border activities and provides empirical evidence....

This paper discusses whether the integration of international financial markets affects business cycle fluctuations. In the framework of a new open economy macro-model, we show that the link between financial openness and business cycle volatility depends on the nature of the underlying shock....

This paper examines the FDI flows towards two regions in the periphery of Europe: the Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) and the countries of Southern Europe. We investigate whether evidence exists for FDI diversion from Southern Europe to the CEECs. A cursory observation of recent...

The German banking market is notorious for its low degree of market penetration by foreign financial institutions, suggesting that markets serviced by domestic and foreign banks are segmented. This paper employs a number of tests to determine whether activities of domestic and foreign banks are...

In this paper, we analyze the link between effort and preferences for redistribution. If individ-uals hold standard preferences, those with higher ability exert more effort. Higher effort leads to a higher income. Individuals with a higher income oppose redistribution. Yet, under non-standard...