Recent empirical studies have shown that the structure of the legal system and the efficiency in law enforcement influence the financial structure of the firm, their ability to gain access to capital markets, and the growth rate of economic systems. This paper uses a simple banking model with...

A well-established result of the theory of antitrust policy is that it might be optimal to tolerate some degree of collusion among firms if the Authority in charge is constrained by limited resources and imperfect information. However, few doubts are cast on the common opinion by which stricter...

Economic and commercial relations between the countries of the southern Mediterranean and the European Union (EU) have been profoundly affected by the recent 'EU Initiative for the Mediterranean' and conditioned by the creation of European Monetary Union (EMU). The paper discusses the costs,...

A puzzling but consistent result in the empirical literature on banking is that firms with close bank ties do not grow faster than bank-independent firms. In this paper, we reconsider the link between relationship lending and firms' growth, distinguishing firms by size and “health”. The idea...

The theoretical literature has identified potential benefits and costs of close bank-firm relationships for both parties, suggesting possible reasons for firms being captured by banks and vice versa. In this paper we empirically explore the effects of long-lasting credit relationships on...

For many countries, remittance behaviour by migrants is an important component of their overall international financial flows. The empirical literature has, so far, analysed the propensity to remit as a function of migrants' socio-economic characteristics. However, no studies have fully...

This paper analyzes financial contagion in a banking system where banks are linked by interbank claims and common assets. We find that asset commonality makes banking systems more vulnerable to idiosyncratic shocks and helps to determine which interbank network structures are resistant to...