Reliable information on small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) is rare and costly for financial intermediaries. To compensate for this, relationship banking is often considered as the appropriate lending technique in the case of SMEs. In this paper we offer a theoretical model to analyze the...

On 1 May 2004 eight former socialist countries - Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, the Republic of Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia - joined the European Union. In the accession year the new EU member states have experienced powerful macroeconomic dynamics, and convergence of...

On 1 May 2004 eight former socialist countries - Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, the Republic of Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia - joined the European Union. In the accession year the new EU member states have experienced powerful macroeconomic dynamics, and convergence of...

Reliable information on small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) is rare and costly for financial intermediaries. To compensate for this, relationship banking is often considered as the appropriate lending technique in the case of SMEs. In this paper we offer a theoretical model to analyze the...

This paper examines the impact of outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) on domestic investment by applying co-integration techniques to macroeconomic time series data for the United Sates and Germany. We show that the two countries differ: In the case of the US, OFDI has positive long-run...

The paper seeks to add to the existing literature on aggregate and private savings by focusing on transition economies. We use panel data over the period 1989-1998 and estimate a fixed-effects model. In Central Eastern European Countries, aggregate and private savings are driven by almost the...

Despite the fact that Argentina has been suffering from a recession for years, the timing and severity of the recent currency crisis surprised most observers. This paper analyzes the role of fundamentals and self-fulfilling speculation in the Argentinean crisis. Arguing within a theoretical...