Monetary policy loosening and the associated impact on credit availability may have played a role in the present financial crisis. If such liquidity risk exists and is undiversifiable, then loose monetary policy should be associated with a risk premium. This paper tests for the existence of such...

We assess whether two classes of bubbles occur in the spot price of gold, rational speculative and periodically bursting bubbles, using gold's' lease rates for the first time in the literature as a measures of its fundamental value. This question is of particular significance as these are the...

This study examines the decision by firm owners to apply, or not, for intermediated debt. Based on a sample of SMEs in 9 European countries over the period 2009-2012, we examine firm characteristics, institutional and cultural factors. We focus our analyses on two distinct groups of firms, those...