We show that international consumption risk sharing is significantly improved by capital flows, especially portfolio investment. Concomitantly, we show that poor institutions hamper risk sharing, but to an extent that decreases with openness. In particular, risk sharing is prevalent even among...

We analyse aspects of the structure of organizational culture. We show that old and culturally uniform organizations are prone to cultural inertia; that is they are reluctant to adopt a different culture in response to a change in the environment. Cultural uniformity can be beneficial because the...

Using a large representative sample of Indian retail equity investors, many of them new to the stock market, we show that both years of investment experience and feedback from investment returns have significant effects on investor behavior, favored stock styles, and performance. We identify two...

An important question in international finance is to what extent stock return volatility is influenced by country location, industry affiliation, and global factors. This Paper develops a new methodology to measure these effects, in which portfolios mimicking ‘pure’ country and industry...

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...

Why is GDP growth so much more volatile in poor countries than in rich ones? We identify four possible reasons: (i) poor countries specialize in more volatile sectors; (ii) poor countries specialize in fewer sectors; (iii) poor countries experience more frequent and more severe aggregate shocks...

This paper considers the incentives of oligopolistic firms to diversify into technologically related markets when there are diseconomies of scope. There is a rent-extraction incentive for firms to adopt flexible technologies, which enable them to enter technologically related markets, thereby...