While the single market has largely been achieved for the EU market for goods, the services sector has lagged behind. This has resulted in sluggish activity, low productivity growth, high prices, that show a wide dispersion and relatively high inflation in this sector. Both the OECD product...

This paper studies an intermediated market operated by middlemen with high inventory holdings. I present a directed search model in which middlemen are less likely to experience a stockout because they have the advantage of inventory capacity, relative to other sellers. The model explains why...

We examine whether the European settlement institutions are technically efficient. This is done by means of estimating a translog cost function, and investigating whether scale economies are fully exploited. Since the sample is quite heterogeneous, fixed effects regression is introduced. From...

This paper examines the performance of 515 banks in 16 transition economies for the years 1994-99 based on their public financial accounts. We first examine lending behaviour and probability distribution of bank profitability to determine whether these banks exhibit behaviour and performance...

"Corporate governance deals with the ways in which suppliers of finance to corporations assure themselves of getting a return on their investment". This to our mind is an extremely narrow definition of corporate governance, especially in banks. Our approach to corporate governance in general is...

The Kauffman Firm Survey (KFS) - is the largest longitudinal study of new businesses ever embarked upon. The panel of businesses was created by using a random sample from Dun & Bradstreet’s (D&B) database list of new businesses started in 2004, which totaled roughly two hundred fifty-thousand...

We study wealth management products (WMPs) issued by banks and find higher prices online than offline. The explanation is: banks must charge lower prices at physical branches to compensate customers for traveling costs. The online-offline price gaps decrease with the share of online-banking...

We explore the potential of different behavioral drivers for people to use cash when presented with digital payment alternatives in retail transactions. Behavioral finance traits in our study include the otherwise neglected emotional drivers. We conducted an online survey targeting university...

We have attempted to explain why professional service firms (PSFs) even in some of the most canonical examples (e.g., law firms) fail to follow the traditional definition. Growth in the size and geographic diversification of law firms has transformed their organizational structures and in some...

Given the rapid increase of web-based sales despite the collapse of many dot-com firms, e-services (both online-only & hybrid "clicks & mortar" firms) are faced with a difficult challenge: what value-added features should they offer to effectively gain market share & profits while realistically...