The authors analyze how property rights affect the allocation of firms' available resources among different types of assets. In particular, they investigate empirically for a large number of countries whether firms in environments with more secure property rights allocate available resources...

The authors apply vector autoregression to firm-level panel data from 36 countries to study the dynamic relationship between firms' financial conditions and investment. They argue that by using orthogonalized impulse-response functions they are able to separate the "fundamental factors" (such as...

Using a firm-level survey database covering 48 countries, the authors investigate whether differences in financial and legal development affect the way firms finance their investments. The results indicate that external financing of investments is not a function of institutions, although the...

Countries that have experienced banking crises have adopted one of two distinct approaches toward the resolution of non-performing assets-a centralized or a decentralized solution. A centralized approach entails setting up a government agency-an asset management company-with the full...

Existing evidence on the effect of foreign bank penetration on lending to small and medium-size enterprises is ambiguous. Case studies of developing countries show that foreign banks lend less to such firms than domestic banks do. But cross-country studies find that foreign bank entry fosters...

Joint Ventures Motives in Classical Corporations and REITs: Same or different? -- Why the REIT Act, REIT Capital Structure, and Diversification Needs call for Joint Venture Use -- REIT Joint Venture formations as means for financial flexibility to capture market timing opportunities -- The Role...

This paper estimates a structural dynamic business investment equation and an error correction model of fixed assets growth on a sample of predominantly small and mid-size manufacturers in India. The results suggest that excessive labor regulation, power shortages, and problems of access to...