A large body of literature has shown that small firms experience difficulties in accessing the credit market due to informational asymmetries. Banks can overcome these asymmetries through relationship lending, or at least mitigate their effects by asking for collateral. Small firms, especially...

A large body of literature has shown that small firms experience difficulties in accessing the credit market due to informational asymmetries. Banks can overcome these asymmetries through relationship lending, or at least mitigate their effects by asking for collateral. Small firms, especially...

What is holding back infrastructure investment, even though real long-term interest rates are low and the potential supply of long-term finance is ample? The answer matters to policy makers, because infrastructure is a key determinant of the growth potential of an economy. This paper identifies...

The relationship between democracy and globalisation has been the focus of substantial policy and academic debate. Some argue that democracy and globalisation go hand in hand suggesting that unrestricted international transactions leads to increased political accountability and transparency....

In this paper we analyze the effects of financial constraints on the exchange rate through the portfolio balance channel. Our contribution is twofold: First, we construct a tractable two-period general equilibrium model in which financial constraints inhibit capital flows. Hence, departures from...

We estimate a panel Bayesian vector autoregression model for a cross-section of seven advanced European economies and produce out-of-sample forecasts of GDP conditionally on observed developments of interest rates and credit. We show that, by using a smooth transition version of the model and...

This paper extends the model of Aoki et al. (2009) considering a two sector small open economy. We study the interaction of borrowing, asset prices, and spillovers between tradable and non-tradable sectors. Our results suggest that when it is difficult to enforce debtors to repay their debt...

Corporate bond issuers in emerging economies in Asia have often had a choice between an onshore market and an offshore one. Since 1998, however, many of these issuers have increasingly turned to the onshore market. This paper investigates systematically what factors have influenced this choice...

Using firm-level data for 18 major global economies, we find that the exchange rate affects corporate investment through a financial channel: exchange rate depreciation dampens corporate investment through firm leverage and FX debt. These findings are consistent with the predictions of a...

The saving rate of China is high from many perspectives - historical experience, international standards and the predictions of economic models. Furthermore, the average saving rate has been rising over time, with much of the increase taking place in the 2000s, so that the aggregate marginal...