Uncertainty, financial development and economic growth: an empirical analysis

This paper examines whether financial sector development may partly undo growth-reducing effects of policy uncertainty. By performing a cross-country growth regression for the 1970-1995 period I find evidence that countries with a more developed financial sector are better able to nullify the negative effects of policy uncertainty on per capita economic growth. For countries with a very well developed financial sector, it may even be the case that an increase in policy uncertainty positively affects per capita economic growth. This clearly indicates the relevance of financial sector development.

Foreign direct investment: flows, volatility and growth in developing countries

This paper contributes to the literature on FDI and economic growth. We deviate from previous studies by introducing measures of the volatility of FDI inflows. As introduced into the model, these are predicted to have a negative effect on growth. We estimate the standard model using cross-section, panel data and instrumental variable techniques. Whilst all results are not entirely robust, there is a consistent finding that FDI has a positive effect on growth whereas volatility of FDI has a negative impact. The evidence for a positive effect of FDI is not sensitive to which other explanatory variables are included. In particular, it is not conditional on the level of human capital (as found in some previous studies). There is a suggestion that it is not the volatility of FDI per se that retards growth but that such volatility captures the growth-retarding effects of unobserved variables.

Joint liability lending: a note

This note argues that the joint liability contracting equilibria worked out in Ghatak(2000) have a serious drawback in that, even though incentive compatible ex ante, they violate ex post rationality. For such contracts to be feasible, banks should be able to extract more under failure than under success. However, when we alllow for this, it may help explain some important empirical observations on joint liability lending.

Financial reform and information problems in capital markets: an empirical analysis of the Chilean experience, 1983-1992

This paper introduces a general, formal treatment of dynamic constraints, i.e., constraints on the state changes that are allowed in a given state space. Such dynamic constraints can be seen as representations of "real world" constraints in a managerial context. The notions of transition, reversible and irreversible transition, and transition relation will be introduced. The link with Kripke models (for modal logics) is also made explicit. Several (subtle) examples of dynamic constraints will be given. Some important classes of dynamic constraints in a database context will be identified, e.g. various forms of cumulativity, non-decreasing values, constraints on initial and final values, life cycles, changing life cycles, and transition and constant dependencies. Several properties of these dependencies will be treated. For instance, it turns out that functional dependencies can be considered as "degenerated" transition dependencies. Also, the distinction between primary keys and alternate keys is reexamined, from a dynamic point of view.

Capital market imperfections, uncertainty and corporate investment in the Czech Republic

The well-known Klein-Monti model of bank behavior considers a monopolistic bank. We demonstrate that this model’s results on the comparative static effects of a change in the exogenous interbank market interest rate do not necessarily hold in oligopolistic Cournot or Stackelberg generalizations. Introducing asymmetries in the cost functions of the banks, or in their way of conduct, may imply counterintuitive effects on the individual banks’ volumes of loans and deposits. Keywords: Bank behavior, Cournot oligopoly, Stackelberg oligopoly

Fiscal Policy and Private Investment in Less Developed Countries

Private investment, Public investment, Fiscal policy, LDCs

Asymmetric information, option to wait to invest and the optimal level of investment

This paper analyzes equilibrium rationing on credit markets in the case of gains from waiting to acquire information about the future profitability of investment. We compare the competitive outcome with the socially optimal level of investment. We show that the opportunity to postpone investment changes the nature of the inefficiencies of the competitive outcome fundamentally. Without the option to wait, high risk firms tend to invest and the outcome is characterized by a situation of underinvestment. If firms can wait high risk firms benefit the most from waiting. In this case low risk firms tend to invest immediately and a situation of overinvestment will result, since from the banks' point of view firms do not delay enough.

Remittances and Financial Inclusion in Development

In this paper we focus on the relationship between remittance inflows and financial inclusion in developing countries. We present single equation estimates on remittances and financial inclusion, and system estimates in which economic growth is explained by e.g., financial inclusion, and financial inclusion by, e.g., remittances inflows. These regressions clearly confirm our main hypothesis that remittances have a development impact through their effect on financial inclusion. Overall, our paper indicates the importance of studying the effects of remittances in developing countries. Remittances, in terms of size, are not only one of the main capital inflows in developing countries, often even more substantial than ODA, but they also appear to have a robust positive effect on economic growth.capital flows, remittances, finance

Risk behaviour and group formation in microcredit groups in Eritrea

We conducted a survey in 2001 among members and group leaders of borrowers who accessed loans from two microcredit programs in Eritrea. Using the results from this survey, this paper aims to provide new insights into the empirical relevance of the homogeneous matching hypothesis for microcredit groups in Eritrea. Since the methodology to test for homogeneous matching needs estimating risk behaviour, the paper also provides new evidence on risk behaviour of members of microcredit groups in Eritrea. Our main results strongly indicate that groups are formed heterogeneously. Most importantly, we do not find support for the matching frictions hypothesis, in the sense that even if we control for matching frictions, credit groups in Eritrea do not seem to consist of borrowers of the similar risk type.

On signalling and debt maturity choice

The theoretical literature on a firm?s choice of debt maturity argues that a borrowing firm can signal its value in asymmetric information setting by borrowing short. This well-known fact is based on Flannery (1986). This paper questions the use of debt maturity as a signalling device. We demonstrate that Flannery?s (1986) signalling outcome is vulnerable on two accounts. First, the separating equilibrium established by Flannery is not driven by the incentive compatibility. Second, derivations of the separating equilibrium appear to be vulnerable due to the lack of the refinements of pooling equilibria. If correct constraints are provided, the parameter space for the separating equilibrium shrinks, moderating the signalling role of debt maturity.