The Japanese banks are now holding a lot of non-performing assets as asset prices fall. The Japanese banks were also holding a large amount of non-performing assets in the inter-war period. The experiences of Japan in the inter-war period may provide useful lessons for the problem of today's...

Past studies have largely focused on the positive role of banks and stock markets on economic growth. This paper adds bond markets as a third key component of the financial system. Using a panel data set of 38 countries, and applying the generalized method of moments techniques for dynamic...

This paper re-examines the causal relationship between stock prices and macro variables like consumption expenditure, investment spending, and economic activity (measured by GDP) in Pakistan. Using annual data from 1959-60 to 1998-99 and applying cointegration and error correction analysis, the...

Pension products offered by life insurance companies to individual customers are no safe protection against inflation. In a survey we tested 48 pension products. The average garanteed return after 40 years was 1.02 percent. The average garanteed return of the tested products offered by big...

Notwithstanding its impressive contributions to empirical financial economics, there remains a significant gap in the volatility literature, namely its relative neglect of the connection between macroeconomic fundamentals and asset return volatility. We progress by analyzing a broad...

China has had a remarkably high ratio of investment to output throughout the period of economic reform, surpassing almost all other economies, whether developed or developing.  The high investment rate is in turn an important proximate determinant of China's high rate of economic growth.  This...

Notwithstanding its impressive contributions to empirical financial economics, there remains a significant gap in the volatility literature, namely its relative neglect of the connection between macroeconomic fundamentals and asset return volatility. We progress by analyzing a broad...