This paper examines necessary conditions for a demand for new information to exist. In this one-period model, investors are homogeneous, have logarithmic utility, and must decide on information acquisition before trading starts, and without knowing what other investors will do. We examine the...

I examine the role of foreign banks in Japan to begin to address the issue of whether the Japanese authorities are pursuing mercantilist policies in trade in financial services. The paper begins with an historical overview of foreign bank entry since the opening of Japan in 1859. Next, I examine...

The opening to foreign banks in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden provides us with an opportunity to study entry, survival and success in a situation where the entrants were subject to the liability of foreignness but not the liability of newness. We find that despite low survival rates, on...

The money we use has symbols and images on it that communicate information. One part of this are pictorial and symbolic elements that draw attention to aspects of the country that issuer is proud of and that convey the message that it wishes to convey. As one would expect, as regimes change, so...

Despite its significance in monetary history, the Maria Theresa thaler (or taler) is little known outside numismatic circles. The paper describes this coin’s history, which the paper argues is the reverse to the obverse of the rise of national monies. The coin circulated in Africa, the Levant...