This paper examines rates of return to schooling in Kazakhstan using OLS (Ordinary Least Squares) and instrumental variable (IV) methodologies. We use spouse's education and smoking as instruments. We find that spouse's education is a valid instrument and that conventional OLS estimates that...

A considerable number of Western European banks acquired banks in Central and Eastern Europe from the mid-1990s onwards. The question is whether or not this will improve the efficiency and profitability of the Central and Eastern European banking sectors. We test the relative strength of the...

This paper compares lending policies of formal, informal and semiformal lenders with respect to household lending in Vietnam. The analysis suggests that the probability of using formal or semiformal credit increases if borrowers provide collateral, a guarantor and/or borrow for business-related...

Using a unique database containing trade and industry variables of foreign-owned companies in the Polish manufacturing industry for the years 1993-2002, we investigate the relationship between the organizational structure of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in Poland and the export structure of...

This paper uses regional panel data to investigate the mechanism whereby foreign direct investment (FDI) has contributed to China's regional development through quantifying regional marketization levels. It is found that FDI inflow generates a demonstration effect in identifying regional market...

The hypothesis of Pareto-optimal risk-sharing is tested in a transition economy using a new dataset of a representative sample of 364 rural households from Romania. Income shocks are identified as instances of adverse weather, crop failure, animal diseases, illness, and unemployment spells....

This paper introduces the notion of collective relationship banking (CRB) as a mechanism for monitoring private information and characterizes the probability of such a banking relationship existing when the borrowing firms have heterogeneous vertical ownership structures. Using a Korean...

Recent studies have found that political disintegration is a cause of severe and rapid trade disintegration in former Eastern European countries. This finding somewhat conflicts with another strand of the literature highlighting the fact that trade patterns change relatively slowly. This article...

The present paper examines the effects of ownership structures on capital structure and firm valuation. It argues that the effects of separation of control from cash flow rights on capital structure and firm value also depend on the separation of control from management as well as on legal rules...