Using a novel proxy of investors’ speculative demand constructed from online search interest in “concept stocks”, we examine how speculative demand affects the returns and trading volume of Chinese stock indices. We find that returns and trading volume increase with the contemporaneous...

This study investigates whether institutional bond blockholders (i.e., bond funds that hold more than 5% of a firm’s outstanding bonds) impede firm innovative activities, and if they do, through which channels. We find that long-term bond blockholders do not discourage firms from conducting...

In this study, we reinvestigate the question of whether government banks are inferior to private banks. We use cross country data from 1993 to 2007 to trace the different types of government banks. These types comprise banks that acquire distressed banks, normal banks, or no banks at all....

Modern banking institutions were virtually non-existent in the planned economies of central Europe and the former Soviet Union. In the early transition period, banking sectors began to develop during several years of macroeconomic decline and turbulence accompanied by repeated bank crises....

In the last decade there has been a significant increase in the use of derivatives as a vehicle to manage financial risk. The sudden spurt of derivatives has resulted in the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) being forced to develop new standards for quantification and disclosure. The...

This study investigates the effectiveness of government intervention in rescuing bearish markets in a transition economy. Focusing on a pre- and a post-intervention period, the findings reveal that government intervention successfully rescued bearish markets in China and led to a fundamental...

Using data from metropolitan U.S. labor market areas, we quantify empirical associations between entry by small firms and a vector of economic performance measures encompassing levels, volatilities, and growth rates of several income and employment variables. Distinct and robust associations are...

Conventional wisdom in banking argues that diversification tends to reduce bank risk and improve performance, but the recent financial crisis suggests that aggressive diversification strategies may have resulted in increased risk taking and poor performance. This paper addresses this important...

There have been profound changes in both political and economic institutions in China over the last twenty years. Moreover, the pace of transition has led to variation across the country in the level of development. In this paper, we use panel data for the Chinese provinces to study the role of...

The European banking industry joined forces to achieve a fully integrated market for retail payment services in the euro area: the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA). Against this background, the present paper examines the fundamental relationship between retail payment business and overall bank...