Existing literature sees opportunistic behaviour of contractual partners as the main reason why rational agents underinvest in relationship-specific assets. We look beyond this well-know holdup problem and argue that financial vulnerability and short-term planning horizon can also lead to such...

Banks (but not stock markets) promote economic growth by facilitating relationship-specific investment between buyers and suppliers of intermediate goods. Combined insights from literature on signaling role of banks and on relationship-specific investment motivate this economic channel: A...

Can financial institutions and markets enhance the discipline imposed by competitive product markets and thus improve resource allocation in the real economy? We address this question in the context of international trade, using disaggregated product-level data from 71 countries exporting to the...

Can financial institutions and markets enhance the discipline imposed by competitive product markets and thus improve resource allocation in the real economy? We address this question in the context of international trade, using disaggregated product-level data from 71 countries exporting to the...

An influential strand of literature starting with the Nobel Prize winning work of Oliver Williamson (1971, 1975) argues that a rational agent underinvests in relationship-specific assets due to the possibility of an opportunistic behaviour on the part of her contractual partner. We first combine...

Existing literature sees opportunistic behaviour of contractual partners as the main reason why rational agents underinvest in relationship-specific assets. We look beyond this well-know holdup problem and argue that financial vulnerability and short-term planning horizon can also lead to such...