This paper discusses the role that financial innovations play in the modern financial system, aiming at identifying and systematizing the core problems and definitions related to this issue. The paper first describes the importance of the financial system and financial markets in the economy,...

Before the financial crisis securitization was commonly considered an efficient way of replacing illiquid assets with liquid securities (ABS), in which the risk was supposed to be adequately compensated by the tranching techniques. However, with the emergence of the crisis investors became more...

Systemic risk is a fundamental constituent of contemporary financial systems. For the past decades a growing number of abrupt upsets in financial systems could be observed. Due to previous experiences, politicians and regulators prefer to identify the off enders outside the system or to blame...

The volatile nature of exchange rates with the advent of floating regimes has received much attention in economic research. The volatility is generally perceived as negatively affecting international trade. While theoretical predictions and empirical outcomes appear mixed, the balance seems to...

This study investigates the causal links among agricultural imports, agriculture productivity, and economic growth in 40 sub-Saharan African countries over the period 1990-2015. Granger causality tests are applied to infer direction of causality, and the generalized two-stage least squares...