The purpose of this paper is to estimate how much revenue might feasibly be generated by closing loopholes in the UK Government's stamp duty tax on share transactions. We focus predominantly on preventing abuse of intermediary relief (sometimes known as the market-makers' exemption). We use...

Avinash Persaud argues that the proposed regulation of credit rating agencies will do more harm than good Copyright (c) 2009 The Author. Journal compilation (c) 2009 ippr.

The surviving legacy of the Long Term Capital debacle of October 1998 is an increased preference for liquidity among international investors. This process has a self-fulfilling element with liquidity following investors out of the less liquid markets and into the more liquid. A closer...

In the international financial arena, policy makers chant three things: market-sensitive risk-management, transparency and prudential standards. The message is we do not need a new world order, just to improve the workings of the existing one. While many believe this is an inadequate response to...

This paper discusses a "pure" form of financial contagion, unrelated to economic fundamentals - investors' shifting appetite for risk. It provides an analytical framework for identifying changes in investors' risk appetite and discusses whether it is possible to directly measure them in a way...