the impact of bank competition and concentration on industrial growth this paper studies whether bank competition affects growth of non banking industries we find that non cooperative bank competition and stability promote industrial growth robustly bank concentration may also affect growth positively the latter effect increases for higher levels of competition

dynamic banking a reconsideration financially intermediated and stock market consumption investment allocations with and without governmental interventions are compared in a welfare sense in overlapping generation economies with and without shocks to agents intertemporal preferences we first show that in economies with preference shocks governmental interventions subject to the same information requirements as those imposed on financial intermediaries lead to stock market allocations that are not inferior to those attained under financial intermediation second we argue that the necessary interventions are qualitatively no different from those required to implement stationary optimal allocations in olg models without shocks to agents intertemporal consumption preferences

banking relationship numbers and new business bankruptcies this paper examines the effect of the number of correspondent financial institutions for small and medium sized enterprises smes at the first settlement of accounts on subsequent firm bankruptcy risk using survival models we use a unique firm level data set of 2667 unlisted smes incorporated in japan between april 2003 and december 2009 moreover in the nature of the analysis we focus on firms that transact with at least one financial institution and disclose information about profit at the first settlement we find that more correspondent financial institutions for smes at the first settlement increase subsequent firm bankruptcy risk furthermore we check the robustness of this result with the method of instrumental variables iv methods and obtain similar results in other words the risk of firm bankruptcy increases with the number of correspondent financial institutions

wider share ownership and economic performance in the uk today almost one in every five adults directly own shares on the stock market compared with a figure of 5 as recently as 1983 this has been a remarkable change engineered by the conservative administration the government have argued that the policy is aimed at creating an enterprise culture nothing less than a fundamental change in attitudes to wealth creation in the economy while we would not disagree with this laudible objective it is clearly difficult to assess both in terms of attainment and consequences one would be happier if the justification for the policy could be grounded in more direct economic terms and the purpose of this paper is to attempt to provide an analysis of some economic aspects of wider share ownership as a policy objective we will attempt to provide a general theoretical analysis although this will inevitably be biased towards aspects of relevance to the uk experience

structural factors in the economic reforms of china eastern europe and the former soviet union reform in china and russia jeffrey sachs and wing thye woo china s experience does not show that gradual reform is superior to the shock therapy undertaken in eastern europe and the former soviet union eefsu differing performance primarily reflects different economic structures prior to reform china was a peasant agricultural society eefsu was urban and overindustrialized in both jobs in state enterprises were so heavily subsidized that workers refused to move to new industries elsewhere even when productivity in the latter was much higher in eefsu the large state sector impeded structural adjustment curtailing subsidies would have produced many losers who used their power to resist this outcome failure to curtail subsidies then cut off the potential supply of labour and other factors to new emerging firms china s state enterprises have not performed as well as the rest of the chinese economy and do not explain its success rapid growth was possible because the large agricultural sector contained vast surplus labour and did not enjoy subsidies and soft budget constraints once constraints on migration across regions and jobs were removed this labour was available to fuel expansion in new industries unlike the distributional conflict in eefsu in china reallocation of labour allowed all groups to gain in both partial liberalization also unleashed macroeconomic pressures manageable in china because of rapid growth and adequate monetary policy but explosive in much of eefsu because of deeper structural problems and gross monetary mismanagement

new issues in corporate finance flow of funds data are used to compare methods of finance in 5 countries over the period 1970 to 1985 many of the problems associated with previous studies are avoided by estimating net instead of gross financing proportions the degree of consolidation of accounts reciprocal arrangements between borrowers and lenders and compensating deposit requirements on borrowers no longer distort financing patterns corrections for inflation are provided by employing flow rather than stock figures and using own aggregation procedures to derive stock measures significant variations in financing emerge these are not readily explained by traditional descriptions of corporate finance in particular taxation as an alternative the paper suggests that relationships between borrowers and lenders establish forms of commitment that are conducive to the provision of long term finance the separation between investment and finance which has been the starting point of corporate finance theory is untenable in a multiperiod context in which terms of finance define future allocation of control

international perspectives on financing evidence from japan a current issue of considerable concern is whether the financial environment of british firms inhibits their competitive position and growth performance the argument is often put in terms of the short sightedness of the investment strategies of british firms or their managers a contrast is drawn between this situation and that in countries where the financial structure encourages managers to take a longer term view similar concerns have been expressed in other countries particularly the usa an international comparison of corporate finance provides a timely opportunity to evaluate these concerns

financial sector volatility banking market structure and exports this paper assesses the impacts of financial sector volatility and banking market structure on industrial exports by utilising the specification of rajan and zingales american economic review 1998 88 559 on the cross country cross industry data from manova journal of international economics 2008 76 33 we find that financial sector volatility measured as the standard deviation of the growth of private credit and banking market structure measured as the share of the three largest banks assets in a country respectively exert significantly negative and positive impacts on industrial exports particularly for those industries that are more externally financially dependent the findings are robust to a variety of kinds of sensitivity analysis and thus lend support to the notion that a more stable and concentrated banking system is important to the exports of those industries that rely more on external finance

the assessment money and banking theory and evidence this issue of the oxford review is concerned with money and banking the articles in the issue provide a comprehensive overview of recent developments in the literature they systematically evaluate both the theoretical and empirical literature on banks the monetary transmission mechanism the operation of financial systems and bank regulation both in a domestic and an international context does money matter has been a favourite question posed by academic economists for several decades while the question has not changed the answer has during the 1950s and 60s the conventional view was that it does matter during the 1970s and 80s the influence of monetary policy on real as opposed to inflationary developments came to be increasingly questioned the consensus in the 1990s has swung back a few decades to the view that money does matter a new twist to the story which did not feature prominently in the 1950s and 60s debate is that banks as well as money matter of course there were several authors such as gurley and shaw 1960 who pointed to the importance of banks in the monetary transmission mechanism however it is really only in the last decade that economic theorists have turned their attention to the rationale for and the special role of banks the irony of this is that the theoretical justification for banks is appearing just at the moment when many commentators point to the demise of banks in the face of such close substitutes as corporate bond markets money market funds and contingent securities

corporate finance in developing countries new evidence for india abstract recent work by singh and hamid 1992 corporate financial structures in developing countries and singh 1995 corporate financial patterns in industrializing economies a comparative international study has suggested that large firms in a number of developing countries including india use much more external finance in general and equity finance in particular than those in developed countries however the contrast is in part a product of methodological differences and india is much less different from countries such as france and italy the singh results are not due merely to bias arising from the focus on the largest companies since the rest of the indian corporate sector also issues large amounts of equity via informal networks rather than organized stock exchanges the importance of such issues suggests the need for further research before policy conclusions can be drawn

the assessment finance law and growth this article reviews the development of corporate finance from domestic analyses to international comparisons of financial systems to comparative corporate governance to law and finance and most recently to politics and finance it describes how both theoretical developments and empirical evidence have guided this research agenda it considers the lessons that can be learnt from the newly emerging literatures and considers the policy implications that can be derived it argues that while strong policy prescriptions are frequently proposed there are many unresolved theoretical and empirical issues which suggest that caution should be exercised in drawing policy conclusions

financial factors and investment in belgium france germany and the united kingdom a comparison using company panel data we construct company panel data sets for manufacturing firms in belgium france germany and the united kingdom covering the period 1978 1989 these data sets are used to estimate empirical investment equations and to investigate the role played by financial factors in each country a robust finding is that cash flow and profits terms appear to be both statistically and quantitatively more significant in the united kingdom than in the three continental european countries this is consistent with the suggestion that financial constraints on investment may be relatively severe in the more market oriented u k financial system

finance as a driver of corporate social responsibility finance is grease to the economy therefore we assume that it may affect corporate social responsibility csr and the sustainability of economic development too this paper discusses the transmission mechanisms between finance and sustainability we find that there is no simple one to one relationship between financial development and sustainable development but there are various often indirect linkages it appears that most of the literature concentrates on the role of public shareholders when it comes to changing corporate policy and performance in a more sustainable direction however this focus neglects the potential impact of the credit channel and private equity on a firm s non financial policies and performance these very powerful mechanisms can govern business policies and practices therefore there appears to be much more scope for finance to promote socially and environmentally desirable activities and to discourage detrimental activities than has been acknowledged in the academic literature so far

stock markets corporate finance and economic growth during the past decade the capitalization of emerging markets increased twentyfold in 1994 trading on these markets accounted for about 17 percent of the 9 6 trillion of shares traded on the world s stock markets up from a mere 3 percent of the much smaller 1 6 trillion in 1985 this rapid growth in emerging stock market activity raises critical questions for developing country policymakers what effect do stock markets have on economic growth how does stock market development affect firms financing decision and if stock markets are good for growth what policies can governments adopt to foster their development this note summarizes answers to these questions drawn from a recent research project

same financial development yet different economic growth why we re study the relationship between financial development and real gdp per capita growth in 48 countries what we find is an interesting evidence that only stock market development has positive effects on growth and that banking development has an unfavorable if not negative effect on growth we examine whether or not these impacts are a product of various financial and economic conditional variables our conditional variables consist of financial liberalization two sets of country development dummies crises in banking and currency dummies the creditor protection index as well as the anti director and corruption indices our results clearly show that the conditional variables of financial liberalization high income level and good shareholder protection mitigate the negative impacts of banking development on growth in contrast the conditional variables of middle income level regional latin american sub saharan african and east asian dummies banking and currency crises good creditor protection and higher corruption strengthen the negative impacts of banking development on growth next the conditional variables of middle income level latin american sub saharan african and east asian dummies strengthen the positive impacts of stock market development on growth whereas the conditional variables of financial liberalization mitigate the positive impacts of stock market development on growth last we find that the relationship between growth and bank development is better described as a weak inverse ushape this inverse u shape becomes stronger when additional stock market variables are squared thus financial development and growth may in fact be in a nonlinear form

bank based versus market based financial systems a growth theoretic analysis abstract we study bank based and market based financial systems in an endogenous growth model lending to firms is fraught with moral hazard as owner managers may reduce investment profitability to enjoy private benefits bank monitoring partially resolves the agency problem while market finance is more hands off a bank based or market based system emerges from firm financing choices neither system is unequivocally better for growth which crucially depends on the efficiency of financial and legal institutions but a bank based system outperforms a market based one along other dimensions investment and per capita income are higher and income inequality lower under a bank based system bank based systems are also more conducive for broad based industrialization

systemic risk and competition revisited abstract this paper revisits the mechanism behind the relation between bank competition and systemic risk i decompose this risk into a component driven by banks commonality with the market and a component arising from other sources of interbank commonality i show that competition is negatively related to the latter this relationship is stronger for more informationally opaque banks financed with a larger share of uninsured sources and in countries with lower deposit insurance coverage the findings are consistent with herding incentives at banks when competition is low

financial systems financing constraints and investment empirical analysis of oecd countries this paper investigates the influence of cash flow on corporate investment in 11 oecd countries we find that the sensitivity of investment levels to internally available funds differs significantly across countries and is lower in countries with predominantly close bank firm relationships than in countries with predominantly arm s length bank firm relationships at the same time we find no relationship of the levels of financial constraints to indicators of overall financial development our results are consistent with the view that information and incentive problems in the capital market have important effects on corporate investment and that close bank firm relationships can reduce these problems and thus improve the access of firms to external finance

the effect of the stock market on investment a comparative study this paper is concerned with examining whether exogenous events whose only direct effect is to change stock prices can indirectly affect corporate investment through the stock price mechanism it is argued that the actual effect of share price changes depends on institutional considerations which affect the degree of managerial autonomy e g the extent of the use of the takeover mechanism gearing ratios and the role of employees in corporate decision making therefore it would be reasonable to expect the stock market to be less influential in japan or germany when compared with the u s or u k this paper provides some econometric evidence which supports this view in that once one has allowed for other influences on investment share prices provide no additional explanatory power for investment behaviour in japan or germany but they do affect investment in the u k and u s if one believes that the stock market is sometimes swayed by irrational considerations the absence of an influence of share prices on investment in japan or germany may then be regarded as an advantage

location costs product quality and implicit franchise contracts abstract in the literature on international trade only little attention has been given to informational asymmetries between firms and consumers with respect to product quality the few economic models that analyze the question of how asymmetric information about product quality might affect trade flows treat product quality as exogeneous in contrast our model takes product quality as an endogeneous variable i e firms can choose the quality they wish to produce in this case location costs can signal product quality under certain conditions and thereby affect international trade flows more specifically intra industry trade in vertically differentiated experience goods can be determined by information asymmetries about product quality

does bank relationship have an economic value abstract previous empirical studies supported the hypothesis that banks are special due to the existence of private information in this paper we provide further evidence by investigating the effect of the hokkaido takusyoku bank s failure on stock returns of its client firms

the real consequences of market segmentation we study the real effects of market segmentation due to credit ratings using a matched sample of firms just above and just below the investment grade cutoff these firms have similar observables including average investment rates however flows into high yield mutual funds have an economically significant effect on the issuance and investment of the speculative grade firms relative to their matches especially for firms likely to be financially constrained the effect is associated with the discrete change

is relationship lending special evidence from credit file data in germany the german financial market is often characterized as a bank based system with strong bank customer relationships the corresponding notion of a housebank is closely related to the theoretical idea of relationship lending it is the objective of this paper to provide a direct comparison between housebanks and normal banks as to their credit policy therefore we analyze a new data set representing a random sample of borrowers drawn from the credit portfolios of five leading german banks over a period of five years we use credit file data rather than industry survey data and thus focus the analysis on information that is directly related to actual credit decisions in particular we use bank internal borrower rating data to evaluate borrower quality and the bank s own assessment of its housebank status to control for information intensive relationships the major results of our study support the view that housebanks are able to establish a distinct behavioral pattern consistent with the idea of long term commitment we find that housebanks do provide liquidity insurance in situations of unexpected deterioration of borrower ratings with respect to loan pricing we find no evidence for intra or intertemporal price differentiation related to housebanking

bank behavior based on internal credit ratings of borrowers abstract this study examines the relation of bank loan terms to borrower risk defined by the banks internal credit rating the analysis is not restricted to a static view it also incorporates rating transition and its implications on the relation money illusion and phenomena linked with relationship banking are discovered as important factors the results show that riskier borrowers pay higher loan rate premiums and rely more on bank finance housebanks obtain more collateral and provide more finance caused by money illusion in times of high market interest rates loan rate premiums are relatively small whereas in times of low market interest rates they are relatively high there was no evidence for an appropriate adjustment of loan terms to rating changes

financialisation and capital accumulation in the non financial corporate sector a theoretical and empirical investigation on the us economy 1973 2003 recent research has explored the growing financialization process in the u s and other advanced economies the term is a catch all phrase used to denote important changes in the structure of non financial corporations balance sheets including the growth of income from financial subsidiaries and investment as well as growth in the transfer of earnings to financial markets in the forms of interest payments dividend payments and stock buybacks this paper seeks to empirically explore the relationship between financialization in the u s economy and real investment at the firm level using data from a sample of non financial corporations from 1973 to 2003 i find a negative relationship between real investment and financialization first increased financial investment and increased financial profit opportunities may have crowded out real investment by changing the incentives of firm managers and directing funds away from real investment second increased payments to the financial markets may have impeded real investment by decreasing available internal funds shortening the planning horizons of the firm management and increasing uncertainty these two channels can help explain the negative relationship i find between investment and financialization

bank concentration and sectoral growth evidence from chinese provinces this paper studies the relationship between bank concentration and economic growth in china it uses panel data for 31 provinces and 8 different sectors over the period 2001 2013 using two stage least squares regressions we find that bank concentration negatively and significantly impacts sectoral growth for chinese provinces this finding has relevant policy implication for policy makers and academics since it suggests that the low level of bank concentration in the chinese financial sector promotes economic growth a finding that this is highly relevant in this period of economic slowdown

the past and future of commercial banking viewed through an incomplete contract lens commercial banks emerged at a time when contracts were quite incomplete and property rights insecure they typically offered demand deposits made loans on demand and were regulated each of these aspects of the institutional structure were essential in helping the bank provide the twin functions of liquidity and safety i argue that recent theories of banking which i collectively refer to as incomplete contract theories of banking explain well the origins of banking i also claim that they can explain recent changes in banking as th e informational legal and property rights environment has improved there appear to be fewer synergies between various aspects of the traditional institutional structure of the bank it is now time to think whether there is anything special about the institutional form of the bank or whether all that is special is that it is regulated

financial regulation and financial system architecture in central europe abstract at the beginning of the transition advice to central european countries with respect to how to set up their financial systems was based on models used in western economies this paper analyzes the experiences to set up a financial system in central europe the experience in the first transition years 1990 1996 with financial system architecture shows that changes are slow but that the central european countries tend to catch up more quickly with the western ones in the case of their banking systems than with respect to their stock markets

business fluctuations in a behavioral switching model gridlock effects and credit crunch phenomena in financial networks abstract in this paper we characterize the evolution over time of a credit network in the most general terms as a system of interacting banks and firms operating in a three sector economy with goods credit and interbank market credit connections change over time via an evolving fitness measure depending from lenders supply of liquidity and borrowers demand of credit moreover an endogenous learning mechanism allows agents to switch between a loyal or a shopping around strategy according to their degree of satisfaction the crucial question we investigate is how financial bubbles and credit crunch phenomena emerge from the implemented mechanism

financial development and economic growth the role of stock markets utilizing time series methods and data from five developed economies we examine the relationship between stock market development and economic growth controlling for the effects of the banking system and stock market volatility our results support the view that although both banks and stock markets may be able to promote economic growth the erects of the former are more powerful they also suggest that the contribution of stock markets on economic growth may have been exaggerated by studies that utilize cross country growth regressions

should banks own equity stakes in their borrowers a contractual solution to hold up problems abstract this paper develops a model to answer the question whether a bank should hold a share of the equity of a borrowing firm the model shows that a small equity stake held by the bank can have a significant and positive impact on the lending relationship the benefit of bank equity participation arises from the reduced ability of the bank to extract rents from the firm in multiple rounds of financing this in turn improves the firm s incentive to make investments in profitable projects that require future outside finance the benefit is likely to be significant for small to medium size firms growth firms and firms with ongoing capital needs the paper addresses from a corporate finance perspective the current debate about whether banks should be allowed to own equity stakes in corporations and how large these equity stakes should be

financial system architecture this article builds a theory of financial system architecture we ask what is a financial market what is a bank and what determines the economic role of each starting with basic assumptions about primitives the types of agents and the nature of the informational asymmetries we provide a theory that explains which agents coalesce to form banks and which trade in the capital market it is shown that borrowers of higher observable qualities access the financial market moreover a financial system in its infancy will be bank dominated and increased financial market sophistication diminishes bank lending article published by oxford university press on behalf of the society for financial studies in its journal the review of financial studies

costly intermediation the big push and the big crash abstract why does financial activity generate large real effects we argue that this may reflect a multiplicity of equilibria due to dynamic interactions between worker s saving decisions and bank s monopolistic competition we show that the equilibrium responses of key aggregates to changes in investment uncertainty and intermediation costs depend crucially on intertemporal substitutability and aggregate employment small financial disturbances may cause the economy to shift between low and high employment equilibria thus providing explanation for the big push and the big crash the high employment high real interest rate equilibrium is consistent with the development experience of the financially repressed east asian economies prior to july 1997

relationship lending and sme financing in the continental european bank based system this paper analyzes the relationship between banks and smes in the continental european bank based system we find that smes with longer bank relationships have enhanced access to loans but at the same time they bear a higher cost for their debt we also find that firms maintaining two bank relationships get the cheapest debt which establishes a limit for the degree of concentration of bank relationships our results also show that the existence of trust between firm and bank improves access to financing and reduces the borrowing costs whereas it increases the likelihood that guarantees will have to be provided as a consequence it seems that a relationship based on trust is a better strategy to improve smes access to finance than the establishment of longer or more concentrated relationships

company sector liquid asset holdings a systems approach liquid asset holdings of the u k company sector are modeled using a money in the utility function theoretical approach symmetry homogeneity and negativity but not homotheticity restrictions are found to hold in a dynamic model using quarterly data the authors examine the usefulness of cointegration techniques in a systems framework the preferred dynamic equations are estimated using the engle granger two step procedure and have coefficients that are satisfactory on a priori grounds and are stable copyright 1992 by ohio state university press

bank interest rates and credit relationships in italy abstract when evaluating the performance of a financial system in supporting the investment activity of the corporate sector a distinction is usually drawn between banking economies and market economies the former being characterized by long term relations between banks and the industrial sector although theoretical studies and empirical results seem to agree that lending relationships increase the available quantity of capital to firms they have little to say on the cost of bank credit it is not clear whether a close relationship with a main bank would allow the borrower to pay a lower interest rate or expose him to a monopolistic rent using a unique data set reporting detailed information on the evolution over time of individual bank borrower relationships in italy we show evidence that a main bank provides credit at a lower cost and that some competition helps to reinforce the commitment between the borrower and the bank

effects of main bank switching on new business bankruptcy abstractthis paper examines the effects of main bank switching on the probability of bankruptcy of new small businesses using a propensity score matching estimation approach we use a unique firm level dataset of approximately 1 000 small and medium sized enterprises smes incorporated in japan these smes are young and unlisted just after incorporation we find that switching main bank relationships increases the probability of firm bankruptcy in addition the result holds only when the relationship between the firm and its main bank is terminated specifically the probability of bankruptcy increases when firms switch their main banks to financial institutions with which they have not previously transacted and when the ex post main banks are not affiliated financial institutions of their ex ante main banks these results may be because such switching worsens the financial condition of client firms and thus it leads to bankruptcy

investor protection and corporate governance recent research has documented large differences among countries in ownership concentration in publicly traded firms in the breadth and depth of capital markets in dividend policies and in the access of firms to external finance a common element to the explanations of these differences is how well investors both shareholders and creditors are protected by law from expropriation by the managers and controlling shareholders of firms we describe the differences in laws and the effectiveness of their enforcement across countries discuss the possible origins of these differences summarize their consequences and assess potential strategies of corporate governance reform we argue that the legal approach is a more fruitful way to understand corporate governance and its reform than the conventional distinction between bank centered and market centered financial systems

reform strategies in transitional economies lessons from asia abstract to date with the possible exception of mongolia liberalization efforts have generally been more successful in the transitional economies of asia teas than in eastern europe and the former soviet union this paper argues that both initial conditions and policies were important in explaining the difference in economic performance the teas except mongolia placed microeconomic reforms ahead of macroeconomic ones similarly there were differences in the approaches taken in areas such as enterprise reform price deregulation and financial sector reform the teas need however to supplement their reform program with fiscal monetary and external sector reforms on an urgent basis without such actions the successes acheived so far could be at stake some general lessons for transitional economies are also derived

the u shaped investment curve theory and evidence we analyze how the availability of internal funds affects a firm s investment we show that under fairly standard assumptions the relation is u shaped investment increases monotonically with internal funds if they are large but decreases if they are very low we discuss the tradeoff that generates the u shape and argue that models predicting an always increasing relation are based on restrictive assumptions using a large data set we find strong empirical support for our predictions our results qualify conventional wisdom about the effects of financial constraints on investment behavior and help to explain seemingly conflicting findings in the empirical literature

the effect of international dependence on income inequality and political violence recent studies of collective political violence have overlooked international causal factors this cross national study of 46 51 nations including analyses of influential cases expends on earlier analyses by simultaneously examining both the external international and the internal intranational determinants of collective political violence regression analysis suggests that transnational corporate penetration an international factor contributes to increased political violence both directly and indirectly through its effect on income inequality we conclude that theoretical and empirical integration of intraand international factors yields the most comprehensive explanation of the causes of collective political violence

debt and communications technology diffusion retrospective evidence this study has evaluated the relationship between debt in the capital structure of firms and the dynamics of broadband and digital technology adoption in the united states based on a large dataset on local exchange carriers in the united states over a contemporary historical fourteen year period from 1988 to 2001 using treatment effects modeling the impact of debt in impacting the levels of firms broadband deployment has been found to be negative and significant the primary source of debt in the sector has been in the form of arm s length corporate bonds and the assumptions of the monitoring hypothesis associated with such debt that lenders in the face of information and collective actions problems might not be able to control managers and hence invest less in highly technology intensive situations are supported by the data additionally the data set has been split into separate sets for two periods one between 1988 and 1995 for the period before the telecommunications act of 1996 came into force and the other set between 1996 and 2001 and the results have stayed consistent a test of the coefficients between the two periods has shown that the negative impact of leverage on broadband deployment has become stronger after the introduction of competition in the sector and this has suggested that the change in the institutional logics between the two periods has been of material impact in influencing lenders perceptions

divergence and convergence in international development a decomposition analysis of inequality in the world system the convergence hypothesis of conventional modernization theory suggests that the nations of the world are becoming more similar critics have argued that nations are diverging and becoming dissimilar over time this paper brings unique data analytic procedures and a world system perspective to bear on this debate we suggest that world system theory provides a framework for explaining the simultaneous occurrence of both convergence and divergence specifically the logic of world system theory suggests that divergence occurs between the three zones of nations core semiperiphery and periphery whereas convergence occurs within them with respect to economic development our analyses indicate that predictions concerning divergence were partially supported and predictions concerning convergence held only for the core trends within the periphery and semiperiphery question the utility of world system theory

financial constraints and the balance sheet channel a re interpretation aggregate demand models extending is lm fixed price framework yield an enhancement mechanism of the traditional monetary transmission mechanism the credit channel which according to the credit view works through the balance sheet channel and the bank lending channel in this paper the augmented is lm model is modified assuming that investments may be financed by both internal and external sources of funds the inclusion of internal funds in the augmented is lm fixed price model suggests a different interpretation of the balance sheet channel as an enhancement mechanism amplifying monetary policy effects through the quantity rather than the cost of borrowing thus changes in borrowers net worth over the cycle can amplify and propagate output fluctuations directly rather than indirectly as in the traditional interpretation of the balance sheet channel the empirical analysis of the monetary transmission mechanism for italy in the last decade accords with the interpretation of the balance sheet c

stock markets corporate finance and economic growth an overview the research presented here focuses on four issues first it constructs more measures or criteria of stock market development than any previous study it compares liquidity concentration volatility institutional development and international integration across forty four industrial and developing countries from 1976 to 1993 besides identifying general characteristics of these measures and defining stock market development empirically these data facilitate further research into the relationship between stock market development and financial intermediaries corporate finance decisions and economic growth these measures ranked for each country can be used for inter country comparisons of the level of stock market development in addition the data provide a basis for gauging the success of capital market development projects using objective criteria second with these new data the research investigates the relationships between stock markets and financial intermediaries third the research analyzes the relationship between stock market development and long run economic growth fourth the research studies the ties between stock market development and financing choices of firms this overview puts this research in context and reviews the main results of the study section i provides a brief review of the role of stock markets in economic development and documents the evolution of debt and equity markets during the growth process section ii defines stock market development and presents summary data on the development of financial intermediaries and stock markets section iii presents evidence on the effect of stock market development on economic growth section iv summarizes the empirical results on how stock market development affects firm financing decisions section v concludes by discussing policy implications

the implications of debt heterogeneity for r d investment and firm performance an assumption in prior research is that debt is homogeneous and provides inappropriate governance for r d investments we argue that debt is heterogeneous although transactional debt does indeed impose strict contractual constraints that provide inappropriate governance for r d investments relational debt has very different characteristics that provide more appropriate governance using a sample of japanese firms we find that firms that align their debt structures with their r d investments perform better than those that are misaligned furthermore firms tend to align their debt structure with r d investments but only after deregulation permits relatively free access to various types of debt

periphery revolutions in world system perspective 1821 1985 periphery revolutions from 1821 to 1985 are surveyed in light of the world system perspective theoretical propositions regarding secular trends and cycles are tested for revolutionary activity and success revolution is shown to vary with the trends as well as the rhythms world leadership cycle and kondratieff longwaves of the world system although an upward trend in revolutionary activity is observable no such growth of revolutionary success is evidenced revolutionary activity increases during kondratieff upswings revolutionary success is more common during the deconcentration phase of the world leadership cycle the implications of the findings for world system stability are discussed

financial innovations in banking impact on regional growth carbo valverde s lopez del paso r and rodriguez fernandez f 2007 financial innovations in banking impact on regional growth regional studies 41 311 326 this paper contributes to the literature on the relationship between finance and growth by analysing the relationships between financial intermediation and economic growth within the regions of one country rather than with different countries the focus on regions is relevant since regional information is more homogeneous the legal and institutional factors are similar and the relevant financial market is more accurately defined the study also incorporates the effects of a set of banking innovations the analysis is undertaken for the spanish regions the results show that product and service delivery innovations contribute positively to regional gross domestic product investment and gross savings growth carbo valverde s lopez del paso r et rodriguez fernandez f 2007 les innovations financieres dans le secteur bancaire l impact sur l

financial market imperfections labour market imperfections and business cycles a greenwald stiglitz 1993a style rational expectations business cycle model is introduced in which uncorrelated productivity shocks or monetary shocks generate autocorrelated employment fluctuations due to financial constraints the propagation mechanism is carefully modelled because of capital market imperfections only standard debt contracts are traded firms labour demand changes in response to changes in their balance sheet position because of labour market imperfections efficiency wages employment and unemployment fluctuate in response to shifts in labour demand the virtue of the model is its simplicity despite the fact that unemployment is endogenous the dynamic behaviour of the model under rational expectations can be characterised analytically

on banking and intermediation abstract the purpose of this lecture is to develop a framework for the study of prudential regulation and to derive policy implications following a discussion of the practice of banking supervision and of the raison d etre of regulation the paper emphasizes the importance of capital adequacy and balance sheet adjustments to shocks affecting either individual banks or the banking sector as a whole the ideas are then applied to the policy debates on market value accounting and on the indexation of the capital requirements to the business cycle the paper concludes with political economy questions and with a discussion of the too big to fail problem

bank firm relationships and allocative efficiency in northeastern and central italy and in the south abstract we make two contributions on the extent and impact of relationship banking based on close and long lasting bank firm customer relationships in the three sub systems in which italy may be subdivided first we show that relationship banking is more extensive in both sub systems where small businesses prevail the fast growing northeast and center nec and the south the marginal area of dependent development second we demonstrate that relationship banking improves the allocation of credit in the nec but worsens it in the south this evidence suggests that relationship banking may be beneficial or detrimental depending on the socio economic structure

ballots and bullets election riots in the periphery 1874 1985 modernisation theory argues that the liberal institutions of the industrialised or core nations have taken root in underdeveloped or periphery ones and produced the pacific flowers of political development critics of the theory however are less sanguine suggesting that core institutions represent foreign imports into the periphery and are viable only when closely managed by core authorities the study tracks election riots in the periphery between 1874 and 1985 an upward trend in rioting is observable further riots occur more frequently during periods of loose control by the core the implications for global liberalism are then discussed

understanding the rise and decline of the japanese main bank system the changing effects of bank rent extraction this paper shows how main bank rent extraction affects corporate decisions about investment and financing during financial regulatory reform our model predicts that limited loanable funds can initially contain main bank controlled overinvestment even when new equity is available to the firm abundant funds facilitate overinvestment to the detriment of firm profitability a shift of control rights back to the firm due to financial deregulation produces an equity for upside potential and bank debt for downside risk bias against the banks a stock market and real estate boom in japan made it harder than ever for the banks to diversify risk the insights from this analysis help explain why japan s main bank system was beneficial in the capital constrained postwar period but became harmful during the capital abundant and even bubbly 1980s and why the adverse shocks of the post deregulation 1990s had such severe effects on the banking system

investor base and corporate borrowing evidence from international bonds abstract we examine international bond issues by us firms to study the benefits of investor taste for cross border security issuances we proxy for firms international investor taste with the fraction of prior international bond holding in firms domestic and international bonds and find that international investor demand increases with such taste moreover the offering yield spreads on international bonds are lower than domestic offering yield spreads for these internationally recognized firms and they have higher probability of issuing internationally such international recognition may occur for instance if the diversification benefits of adding the security to investor s portfolio outweigh the negative effects of higher renegotiation costs for international compared to domestic investors

what makes german banks different the past few years have seen a revival in the academic debate over the economic functions of german banks this paper takes the position that large non financial firms have become highly autonomous of the banks and the corporate governance role of banks while still important is much less significant than widely presumed german banks however do fulfill certain economic functions to a greater degree and in a different manner than banks in other countries these bank functions of long term commercial financing comprehensive management consulting and supporting diversified quality production strategies are made possible by the institutional character of the banking system itself and the institutional context in which it operates a complex web of government laws regulations and government financial aid combine with bank group competition to create an extensive and successful financial support system for german smes this system faces various adjustment challenges from international financial market integration to eu regulatory harmonization but it has thus far managed to adapt while sustaining its core functions

bank supervision and corruption in lending abstract which commercial bank supervisory policies ease or intensify the degree to which bank corruption is an obstacle to firms raising external finance based on new data from more than 2500 firms across 37 countries this paper provides the first empirical assessment of the impact of different bank supervisory policies on firms financing obstacles we find that the traditional approach to bank supervision which involves empowering official supervisory agencies to monitor discipline and influence banks directly does not improve the integrity of bank lending rather we find that a supervisory strategy that focuses on empowering private monitoring of banks by forcing banks to disclose accurate information to the private sector tends to lower the degree to which corruption of bank officials is an obstacle to firms raising external finance in extensions we find that regulations that empower private monitoring exert a particularly beneficial effect on the integrity of bank lending in countries with sound legal institutions

the benefits of lending relationships evidence from small business data this paper empirically examines how ties between a firm and its creditors affect the availability and cost of funds to the firm we analyze data collected in a survey of small firms by the small business administration the primary benefit of building close ties with an institutional creditor is that the availability of financing increases we find smaller effects on the price of credit attempts to widen the circle of relationships by borrowing from multiple lenders increases the price and reduces the availability of credit in sum relationships are valuable and appear to operate more through quantities rather than prices

conflicting interests in information disclosure and short term orientation of firms abstract this paper explains why firms might be excessively short term oriented even when they are able to inform the capital market about the true quality of their assets the information a firm reveals to the capital market can be used by competitors to the firm s detriment in this case the future profitability of the firm s assets is no longer exogenous but is influenced by the strategic actions of its competitors which in turn depend on the information the firm discloses this motivates the firm to switch resources from future prospects to short term profits the results have policy implications and may help explain the empirical observation that u s firms tend to be more short term oriented than japanese firms

collateral relationship lending and family firms prior research suggested that relationship lending could play a role in solving asymmetric information problems between borrower and lender other studies suggest a relationship between family ownership and the shareholder bondholder agency conflict the present paper investigates the impact of relationship characteristics family ownership and their interaction effects upon the use of collateral in sme lending we examine the determinants of collateral as well as the determinants of the choice between business and personal collateral using decision tree analysis the results reveal that relationship characteristics have a significant influence but not always in the direction as expected moreover they do not seem to be the primary determinants in our classification models the most important determinants in both classification models seem to be the loan amount total assets and the family versus non family firm distinction in addition we differentiate between line of credit and non line of credit loans and find significant differences between these decision trees

business collateral and personal commitments in sme lending abstract using a database of sme credit approvals from a large belgian bank this paper extends the empirical evidence on the determinants of collateral by examining the determinants of business collateral simultaneously with the determinants of personal collateral commitments our results suggest that firm and relationship characteristics seem to be more important determinants of collateral commitment protection than loan and lender characteristics family firms are more likely to offer a higher degree of collateral commitment protection while introducing competition between banks decreases this likelihood the collateral requirement decreases in the length of the bank borrower relationship furthermore trade credit seems to have a signalling effect the lazy banks hypothesis was not supported our results suggest that beside risk arguments also commercial arguments help explain the pledging of collateral using a continuation ratio logit model we discover several differences in the determinants of the collateralisation decision and the determinants of the type of collateral commitments

how to reform a planned economy lessons from china the countries of eastern europe and the former soviet union have been flooded with advice from the west on how to liberalize their planned econo mies this advice is unfortunately offered in an empirical vacuum no one knows how these econo mies will react to the proposed liberalization meas ures there exists however a neglected source of information china offers a long time series of data over a decade s worth on the effects of reforms on a planned economy china s reforms were gradual but their cumulative effect has been large and they have been remarkably successful china s experiments provide some practical les sons on what kinds of reforms can work elsewhere the dominant school of thought among economists favours the big bang policy of reforming quickly and according to a comprehensive plan partial reforms in this view are useless they will be negated by the remnants of the planning system the proponents of big bang reform have been influential with poland czechoslovakia and rus sia announcing plans for a rapid transition to capi talism