This paper associates both the increase in risk taken by wholesale banks in the United States and the decline in earnings at wholesale banks in Japan with a reduction in the franchise value of wholesale banking. In contrast with the conventional view that relates the franchise value of banking...

The credibility of the exchange rate bands in the Nordic countries during 1987-91 is examined with two tests. The results suggest that the credibility of Finland’s exchange rate band within a twelve-month horizon could not be rejected except in the fall of 1991; however, the band lacked...

In this paper the political economy of revolutions is revisited, as it has been developed and applied in a number of publications by Acemoglu and Robinson. We criticize the fact that these authors abstract from collective-action problems and focus on inequality of income or wealth instead. In...

This paper presents an empirical analysis investigating the relationship between the futures trading activities of speculators and hedgers and the potential movements of major spot exchange rates. A set of trader position measures are employed as regression predictors, including the level and...

Oliver E. Williamson is the 2009 co-recipient (with Elinor Ostrom) of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, awarded ‘for his analysis of economic governance, especially the boundaries of the firm’.