For a large number of companies from different countries, we analyze how company corporate governance practices and country regulatory regimes interact in terms of company valuation. We confirm that corporate governance plays a crucial role in efficient company monitoring and shareholder...

Interest rates fell sharply after Mexico's Brady deal, and private investment and growth recovered. We show, econometrically, that debt relief influenced the macroeconomy mostly though its favourable impact on uncertainty. While the impact of the <MI>variability<D> of the future net transfer is...</d></mi>

The international financial system has been the subject of much debate following the financial crises of the 1990s. While many reforms have been proposed for and implemented by mostly developing countries, few changes have been made to the international financial system itself. Fundamentally,...

This Paper investigates how the legal framework not only affects the amount of external financing available, but also firms’ resource allocation among different types of assets. Using a simple model, we show that in a weaker legal environment a firm will get less financing, and thus invest...

Using novel indicators of political connections constructed from campaign contribution data, we show that Brazilian firms that provided contributions to (elected) federal deputies experienced higher stock returns than firms that did not around the 1998 and 2002 elections. This suggests that...

We provide a comprehensive empirical characterization of the linkages between key macroeconomic and financial variables around business and financial cycles for 21 OECD countries over the period 1960–2007. In particular, we analyze the implications of 122 recessions, 112 (28) credit...

We identify current challenges for creating stable, yet efficient financial systems using lessons from recent and past crises. Reforms need to start from three tenets: adopting a system-wide perspective explicitly aimed at addressing market failures; understanding and incorporating into...

Although cross-border bank lending has fallen sharply since the crisis, extending our bank ownership database from 1995-2009 up to 2013 shows only limited retrenchment in foreign bank presence. While banks from OECD countries reduced their foreign presence (but still represent 89% of foreign...