This paper presents a model to analyze the consequences of competition in order-flow between a profit maximizing stock exchange and an alternative trading platform on the decisions concerning trading fees and listing requirements. Listing requirements, set by the exchange, provide public...

I propose a model in which firms can convey their quality by listing on a stock exchange. To list, firms must comply with costly listing requirements allowing investors to recognize imperfectly their quality. A profit maximizing exchange may set listing requirements leading to high information...

Crowding-out during the British Industrial Revolution has long been one of the leading explanations for slow growth during the Industrial Revolution, but little empirical evidence exists to support it. We argue that examinations of interest rates are fundamentally misguided, and that the...

Using a new dataset on capital account openness, we investigate why equity return correlations changed over the last century. Based on a new, long-run dataset on capital account regulations in a group of 16 countries over the period 1890-2001, we show that correlations increase as financial...

I propose a model in which a stock exchange can improve its liquidity by tightening its listing requirements. Because these reduce information asymmetry, they increase the utility of investors and lead to a high investor participation on the exchange. However, the exchange never sets the highest...

We examine the effect of close ties with the NSDAP on the stock price of listed firms in 1932-33. We consider not only links between the National Socialists and executives, as was common in earlier work, but also with supervisory board members – whose importance is hard to overestimate in the...

The extreme levels of stock price volatility found during the Great Depression have often been attributed to political uncertainty. This Paper performs an explicit test of the Merton/Schwert hypothesis that doubts about the survival of the capitalist system were partly responsible. It does so by...