We examine whether the experience of shocks influences individual risk attitude. We measure risk attitude via a simple survey item, compiled among more than 4,000 households in Thailand and Vietnam. The experience of adverse shocks, which is typical for poor and vulnerable households, is related...

The village funds programme in Thailand is one of the biggest microfinance programmes in the world aiming at improving access to finance and income in rural areas. Earlier studies indicate that the programme is successful in realising its ambitions to some degree. We extend this work by...

Early warning systems (EWSs) are subject to restrictions that apply to exchange rates in general: fundamentals matter but their influence is small and unstable. Keeping this in mind, five lessons emerge : First, EWSs have robust forecasting power and thus help policy-makers to prevent crises....

The paper estimates and compares cost efficiency of domestic and foreign banks in Thailand by using bank-panel data between 1995 and 2003. It also examines the effect of foreign bank entry on banking efficiency in Thailand since the significant acquisitions by foreign banks after the 1997...

This paper examines the contribution of recently introduced village funds in rural Thailand, one of the largest microfinance programs ever implemented. We use a cross-sectional approach examining village funds in relation to competing financial institutions. We find, first, that village funds...

Die Diskussion über die Besetzung des Chefpostens beim IWF hat deutlich gemacht, daß es über die künftigen Aufgaben der internationalen Institution unterschiedliche Auffassungen gibt. Vor allem die Reformvorschläge der „Meltzer-Kommission" fanden dabei ein großes Echo. Von welchen...

Are responses to a simple survey item sufficiently reliable in eliciting risk attitudes? Our angle in examining reliability is to conduct comparative research across Thailand and Vietnam. We find, first, that the survey item is informative about individual risk attitude because it is plausibly...

This paper suggests that exchange rates are related to economic fundamentals over medium-term horizons, such as a month or longer. We find from a large panel of individual professionals' forecasts that good exchange rate forecasts benefit from the proper understanding of fundamentals,...

We show that technical indicators deliver economic value in predicting the U.S. equity premium. A crucial element of this value stems from the stability of return predictability over the full sample period from 1950 to 2013. Results tentatively improve over time and beat alternatives over...

Why do some people make better financial decisions than others do? The level of financial literacy plays an important role: Quality schooling that also deals with financial issues likewise leads to better financial decisions. However, many studies neglect how parenting also influences financial...