Customs-related corruption costs World Customs Organisation (WCO) members at least $2 billion in customs revenue each year. Using recent data only about bribe payers' actual experiences in paying bribes, we show that trade facilitation would only help reduce corruption and improve efficiency -...

The wealth management industry has expanded greatly in the Middle East -- following the fortunes of wealth itself. How can wealth managers identify and grow their portfolios in this region? What policies can they push for in order to build wealth management and private banking services? What...

How should wealth managers and private bankers find and serve the wealthy - particularly in developing countries? Several banks and consulting firms provide market sizing estimates for the number of high net worth and ultra-high net worth individuals. However, it is still an open question...

Does government size and structure adapt to changes in government's organisational environment (particularly to uncertainty and complexity) as predicted by organisational theory? We find - using a range of statistical analyses - support for each of the major theories of organisation adaptation...

Hong Kong leads the rank tables as an international financial centre. However, the data indicate that some parts of her corporate governance arrangements probably detract from - rather than contribute to - that leading position. In this brief, we show how excessive shareholding concentration,...

Roughly 60% of all publically announced advisors to China's "Going Out" M&A transactions from 2000 to 2014 were from international financial centres (representing over 70% of deal value). Why did advisors, located so far away from both acquirer and target, manage to dominate the M&A advisory...

How far do China’s property prices need to drop in order to send the country into a recession? What does this question tell us about the way Bubble Economies work? In this paper, we develop a theory of Bubble Economics - non-linear and often "systemic" (in the mathematical sense of the word)...