Using cross-sectional analysis of corporate dividend policy we show that large shareholders extract rents from firms and expropriate minority shareholders in the weak corporate governance environment of an emerging economy. By comparing dividends paid across varying corporate ownership struc-...

‘Safe harbour’ is shorthand for a bundle of privileges in insolvency which are typically afforded to financial institutions. They are remotely comparable to security interests as they provide a financial institution with a considerably better position as compared to other creditors should...

Economic damage from natural hazards can sometimes be prevented and always mitigated. However, private individuals tend to underinvest in such measures due to problems of collective action, information asymmetry and myopic behavior. Governments, which can in principle correct these market...

In this paper we study the pricing of credit risk as reflected in the market for credit default swaps (CDS) between 2003 and 2008. This market has newly emerged as the reference for credit risk pricing because of its use of standardized contract specifications and has achieved a higher level of...

Individual and household based aggregate measures of worklessness can, and do, offer conflicting signals about labour market performance. We outline a means of quantifying the extent of any disparity, (polarisation), in the signals stemming from individual and household-based measures of...

The 2004 Presidential Election in Mozambique was marred by allegations of fraud. We assess the validity of these allegations by testing whether or not qualitative descriptions of the methods and locations of misconduct are consistent with a series of simple quantitative tests. Most studies of...

Economic evaluation of climate policy traditionally treats uncertainty by appealing to expected utility theory. Yet our knowledge of the impacts of climate policy may not be of sufficient quality to justify probabilistic beliefs. In such circumstances, it has been argued that the axioms of...

We introduce a notion of median uncorrelation that is a natural extension of mean (linear) uncorrelation. A scalar random variable Y is median uncorrelated with a kdimensional random vector X if and only if the slope from an LAD regression of Y on X is zero. Using this simple definition, we...

For testing lack of correlation against spatial autoregressive alternatives, Lagrange multiplier tests enjoy their usual computational advantages, but the (χ2) first-order asymptotic approximation to critical values can be poor in small samples. We develop refined tests for lack of spatial...

Recent work (including that of the author) on the impact of FDI has been based on microlevel (i.e. firms, establishments or plants) data, since this allows much greater control when examining such issues as whether FDI plants are more productive or innovative; whether there are spillovers to...