Social infrastructure has endured a long period of neglect in most developed and emerging countries, with chronic underinvestment exposed by the coronavirus crisis 2020. The financial crisis 2007/08 led to a slow revival of economic infrastructure policies, and a growing involvement of...

Although twenty years have elapsed since the beginning of transition, Eastern European and Central Asian countries are still characterized by remarkably heterogeneous levels of economic development. In the light of the established causal relationship between finance and growth, we perform an...

Theoretical work suggests an ambiguous relationship between the strength of institutions and the distribution of access to finance. Using a sample of listed firms from 70 countries, this study constructs country-level measures of inequality in access to external finance, and explores its...

This note critically discusses the possible endogenous problems that microfinance sector in Bangladesh should seriously take into account. It also draws possible explanations and/or consequences of these factors. The broad understanding is that the sector should emphasize credit plus programs,...

In the early 1990s, a widely shared opinion among scholars and practitioners was that the importance of physical proximity between banks and borrowers would be doomed to decrease drastically over time and, put in extreme terms, the end of banking geography would become a real possibility....

Numerous microfinance initiatives around the world aim to alleviate poverty in developing countries. However, debate persists about their effectiveness and sustainability – a concern for transnational corporations and the international business community, which contribute about $9.4 billion to...

This paper contrasts the determinants of entrepreneurial entry and high-growth aspiration entrepreneurship. Using the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) surveys for 42 countries over the period 1998-2005, we analyse how institutional environment and entrepreneurial characteristics affect...

This paper contrasts the determinants of entrepreneurial entry and high-growth aspiration entrepreneurship. Using the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) surveys for 42 countries over the period 1998-2005, we analyse how institutional environment and entrepreneurial characteristics affect...

This paper contrasts the determinants of entrepreneurial entry and high-growth aspiration entrepreneurship. Using the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) surveys for 42 countries over the period 1998-2005, we analyse how institutional environment and entrepreneurial characteristics affect...

The growing presence of Islamic banking needs to be accompanied by the development of effective regulation and supervision. This paper examines the results of the survey conducted by the International Monetary Fund to document international experiences and country practices related to legal and...