US agricultural economic growth in this century has been characterized by a slow rise in the demand for food and faster growth in farm output as against nonfarm productivity. In such an environment, one expects the size of the farm sector to decline as a share of the rest of the economy. What is...

This paper elucidates the key debates surrounding the optimal design of financial systems and institutions: bank-based versus market-based; universal versus specialized banking; relationship versus arms-length banking. The paper also examines the historical pattern of financial system...

Investment banking taken generally to mean the financing of long-term capital needs, came into being with the merchants of medieval trade routes. In almost all developed economies of the world, even those developing late in the 19th century, investment bankers emerged from merchant roots. The...