We examine the determinants of Japanese foreign direct investment (FDI) focusing on institutional and social factors. Using panel data on 59 countries from 1995 to 2008, we find that host countries with free and open markets and greater cultural distance from Japan attract Japanese FDI. Good...

To clarify the causal links between financial activity and economic growth, three theoretical models are analyzed and a LISREL structural equation path model is estimated. In the modeling part, poverty traps result from large fixed costs or high proportions of real investment to run a financial...

We present statistical backtesting procedures applicable in situations where few and heterogeneous probabilities have to be evaluated, as is typically the case when forecasting country default risk. These tests are applied to a sample of default probabilities assessed for 19 emerging market and...

We investigate the consistency of efficiency scores derived with two competing frontier methods in the financial economics literature: stochastic Frontier and Data Envelopment Analysis. We sample 34,192 observations for all German universal banks and analyze whether efficiency measures yield...

We develop an indicator for currency crisis risk using price spreads between American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) and their underlyings. This risk measure represents the mean exchange rate ADR investors expect after a potential currency crisis or realignment. It makes crisis prediction possible...

We use a compound option-based structural credit risk model to estimate banking crisis risk for the United States based on market data on bank stocks on a daily frequency. We contribute to the literature by providing separate information on short-term, long-term and total crisis risk instead of...