During the last ten years, Estonia has made strong efforts in terms of the transition to a market economy. This is particularly true with respect to the soundness and transparency of monetary and fiscal policies, the privatisation of former state-owned enterprises, the development of the...

This paper examines the announcement returns of bidders acquiring private firms owned by families versus the returns of bidders acquiring non-family controlled private firms. The sample consists of 391 acquisitions of private targets in seven continental European countries for the period...

This paper investigates whether, and to what extent, the uncertainty with respect to the annual debt service payments may adversely affect economic growth of the group of highly indebted poor countries (HIPCs). We find supportive evidence for this hypothesis. Based on these results, we conclude...

In this paper, we review the theoretical and empirical literature on capital flight. First, we discuss the measurement of capital flight. Next, we provide information on the magnitude as well as the ‘burden’ of capital flight for a selected set of developing countries in four regions of the...

This paper analyses the impact of fiscal policy on private investment for a sample of thirty-three LDCs. The paper makes a number of important contributions to the existing empirical literature. Its main contribution is that it is the first attempt to analyse the existence of a non-linear...

This paper surveys 50 years of empirical research on the macroeconomic impact of aid, looking mainly at studies examining the link between aid and growth. It argues that studies dating until the late 1990s produced either contradictory or inconclusive results. Aid either worked, or it didn’t,...

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between financial liberalization on the one hand and saving, investment and economic growth on the other hand, using a new dataset for measuring financial liberalization for a sample of 25 developing economies over the period 1973-96. We find no...

Purpose: Empirical studies on the importance of social capital for poor households show divergent outcomes. This divergence may stem from the lack of a conceptual framework for capturing the social capital dimensions that deliver economic value to individuals. The purpose of this paper is to...

Existing literature suggests that the contents of corporate governance codes are similar due to external forces, such as increased integration of countries in the global economy, the increased role of foreign institutional investors and recommendations on corporate governance practices of...