The Capital Markets Union-project of the European Commission aims for an increase of market-based debt financing of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), complementing bank lending. In this essay we argue that rather than focussing on pure non-bank lending, a reasonable mix of bank- and...

This paper presents new evidence about privatisation processes and their determinants from a panel of 34 countries over the 1977-99 period. The empirical analysis shows that privatisation takes place typically in wealthy and democratic countries, endowed with deep and liquid stock markets, and...

Beyond the loss of life and personal injuries that the victims of terrorist actions suffer and the atmosphere of fear terrorists seek to create with their premeditated use of brutal violence, terror also has real economic and political costs that go beyond the immediate costs and damages of a...

Terrorist incidents exert a negative, albeit generally short-lived, impact on markets and equity returns. Given the integration of global financial markets, mega-terrorist events also have a high contagion potential with their shock waves being transmitted across countries and markets. This...

The paper discusses financial liberalization in the context of a proposed RP-US FTA. It discusses the state of the financial industry, in general, and also reviewed the US-Chile and US-Singapore FTAs to be able to arrive at the proposed provisions for the RP-US FTA. It also tackles the reforms...

This report analyses the possibility to outflank disclosure obligations under the German Securities Trading Act as well as the German Takeover Act by using derivative instruments in the context of the attack of Schaeffler KG on Continental AG. Irrespective of a limited knowledge of the complete...

Why did Victorian Britain invest so much capital abroad? We collect over 500,000 monthly returns of British and foreign securities trading in London and the United States between 1866 and 1907. These heretofore-unknown data allow us to better quantify the historical benefits of international...

As banking has become more globalized, so too have the consequences of shocks originating in home and host markets. Global banks can provide liquidity and risk-sharing opportunities to the host market in the event of adverse host-country shocks, but they can also have profound effects across...