Financial systems all over the world have grown dramatically over recent decades. But is more finance necessarily better? And what concept of financial system – a focus on its size, including both intermediation and other auxiliary “non-intermediation” activities, or a focus on traditional...

We present a dynamic microstructure model where a dealer market (DM) and a crossing network (CN) interact. We consider sequentially arriving agents having different valuations for an asset. Agents maximize their profits by either trading at a DM or by submitting an order for (possibly) uncertain...

How do banks react to increased interbank competition? Recent banking theory offers conflicting predictions about the impact of competition on bank orientation - i.e., the choice of relationship based versus transactional banking - and bank industry specialization. We empirically investigate the...

A recent string of theoretical papers highlights the importance of geographical distance in explaining loan rates for small firms. Lenders located in the vicinity of small firms face significantly lower transportation and monitoring costs, and hence considerable market power, if competing...

This paper examines how bank relationships affect firm performance. An empirical implication of recent theoretical models is that firms maintaining multiple bank relationships are less profitable than their single-bank peers. We investigate this empirical implication using a data set containing...

This paper provides evidence on the relationship between finance and growth in a fast growing country, such as China. Employing data of 27 Chinese provinces over the period 1995-2003, we study whether the financial development of two different types of institutions - banks and non-bank financial...

We analyze the resiliency of a pure limit order market by investigating the limit order book (bid and ask prices, spreads, depth and duration), order flow and transaction prices in a window of best limit updates and transactions around aggressive orders (orders that move prices). We find strong...

Integrated financial markets provide opportunities for expansion and improved risk sharing, but also pose threats of contagion risk through cross-border exposures. This paper examines cross-border contagion risk over the period 1999-2006. To that purpose we use aggregate cross-border exposures...

Integrated financial markets provide opportunities for expansion and improved risk sharing, but also pose threats of contagion risk through cross-border exposures. This paper examines cross-border contagion risk over the period 1999-2006. To that purpose we use aggregate cross-border exposures...

We investigate small firms' capital structure, employing a proprietary database containing financial statements of Dutch small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from 2003 to 2005. We find that the capital structure decision of Dutch SMEs is consistent with the pecking order theory: SMEs use...