Claimants to Systemically Important Financial Institutions (SIFIs) would receive transfers when governments are forced into bailouts. Ex ante, this bailout expectation lowers SIFIs’ daily funding costs. The funding cost advantage reflects both the structural level of the government support and...

Using an enhanced version of the standard investment model, we estimate how institutions affect financial frictions at the firm (micro) level and, through the required rate of return, at the country (macro) level. Based on some 78,000 firm–year observations from 40 countries over the period...

When a central bank is in charge of both price and financial stability, a new time-inconsistency problem may arise. Monetary policy may be abused to reduce the private sector’s real debt burden after a financial shock materializes.

Competition among banks promotes growth and stability for an economy with production externality. Following Arrow and Debreu (1954) [6], I formulate a standard growth model with externality—a two-period version of Romer (1986) [39]—as a game among consumers, firms, and intermediaries. The...

Financial frictions have been identified as key factors affecting both short-term economic fluctuations and long-term growth. An important policy question therefore is whether institutional reforms can reduce financial frictions and, if so, which reforms are best? We address this question by...

This paper constructs a composite index of corporate governance quality, documents its evolution during the 1994-2003 period in selected emerging and developed economies, and assesses its impact on growth and productivity of the economy and its corporate sector. Our investigation yields three...