We use partisan and opportunistic political business cycle (“PBC”) considerations to develop and test a framework for explaining election-period changes in credit spreads for developing country sovereign bonds. Pre-election bond spread trends are significantly linked both to the partisan...

Using a sample of 2,827 firms from 21 countries we examine whether insider trading laws achieve the primary objective for which they are introduced – protecting uninformed investors from private information-based trading. We find that when control is concentrated in the hands of a large...

This paper studies foreign exchange risk premium using the uncovered interest rate parity framework in a single country context. The analysis is performed using weekly data on foreign and domestic currency deposits in Armenian banking system. The paper provides the results of the simple tests of...

We use partisan and opportunistic political business cycle (“PBC”) considerations to develop a framework for explaining election-period decisions by credit rating agencies (“agencies”) publishing developing country sovereign risk-ratings (“ratings”). We test six hypotheses derived...

This paper documents the ultimate shareholding structures of 826 corporations listed on China's stock market and finds large equity holdings of the government. Using a panel data set, this paper further finds that corporate value decreases with an increased size of government shareholding when...

This paper examines the surprising performance of the Argentine stock market in the midst of the country’s most recent financial crisis and the role played by ADRs in Argentine capital flight. Although Argentine investors were subject to capital controls, they were able to purchase stocks with...

Despite the longstanding insider trading debate, there is little empirical research on insider trading laws, especially in a comparative context. The article attempts to fill that gap. I find that countries with more prohibitive insider trading laws have more diffuse equity ownership, more...

There has been increasing interest in exploring financial instruments that could limit the cyclical vulnerabilities of developing countries and reduce the likelihood of defaults and debt crises. GDP-indexed bonds fall into this category and may also generate a wider range of benefits for issuer...

This paper considers the main elements of the standard pattern of financial liberalization that has become widely prevalent in developing countries. The theoretical arguments in favour of such liberalization are considered and critiqued, and the political economy of such measures is discussed....

The explosion and dramatic reversal of capital flows to emerging markets in the 1990s have ignited a heated debate, with many arguing that globalization has gone too far and that international capital markets have become extremely erratic. In contrast, others have emphasized that globalization...