In this paper we show that the spread of the classical gold standard in the late nineteenth century increased international trade flows. This positive effect was compounded whenever a group of countries formed a monetary union. Applying the gravity model of trade to more than 1,100 country pairs...

"In the project 'Combined firm data for Germany' (KombiFiD) firm data from different institutions were merged and made available for research for the first time. The institutions involved in the project faced considerable challenges both due to the narrow legal limits underlying such a merging...

The effects of Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) are disputed. In this paper, we assess these effects using capital market data and an event-study approach, using a daily data set covering a thousand announcements spanning over eighty economies and a hundred RTAs over twenty recent years. We...

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 dissects with great acuteness, the issues of convergence in financial performance dynamics in the African continent through the lenses of stock market capitalization, value traded, turnover and number of listed companies. The empirical evidence is premised on 11 homogenous panels...

In examining some big questions on African development, we provide evidence that dynamics of some development indicators could support both endogenous and neoclassical growth theories in the convergence debate. This paper investigates convergence in real per capita GDP and inequality adjusted...