Banking Regulation, Institutional Framework and Capital Structure: International Evidence from Industry Data

This paper uses an industry data set from the European Union, United States and Japan to investigate the degree to which banking regulation and institutional environment affects corporate finance choices. La Porta et al. (1997, 1998) have shown the influence of investor protection on financing decisions. We extend these measures of investor protection and develop a measure for banking regulation. We both confirm prior findings and provide additional evidence of "institutional effects". We find that prudential banking regulation is positively associated with industry indebtedness, indicating that prudential rules make it easier for firms to access to credit market. Furthermore, we also find that disclosure rules affect leverage decisions.banking regulation, investor protection, capital structure

Do Market Regulation and Financial Imperfections Affect Firm Size? New Empirical Evidence

This paper investigates the importance that market regulation and financial imperfections have in firm size. We analyse institutions affecting labour market as Employment Protection Laws (EPL) and Product Market Regulation (PMR). Moreover, we study the effects of these institutions on firm growth. We use data from 29 industrial sectors across 15 developed countries. We find that market regulations related to financial imperfections help to explain differences in firm structure across countries.Financial development, labour market institutions, firm structure

Legal environment, capital structure and firm growth: international evidence from industry data

This paper investigates the effects that economic regulations have on firm growth. There is substantial evidence of a positive relationship between the level of financial development and economic growth. Little is known, about the role played by the legal structure affecting firm decision making on growth. We analyse banking regulation, disclosure requirements, company and bankruptcy laws, accountancy norms and rules about market competition. We find evidence that the efficiency of the legal environment affects significantly firm growth. We show that this result is unlikely to be driven by omitted variables. We also show that institutional framework impacts the influence of financial development on growth. We find that comprehensive shareholder and creditor protection affects more positively those sectors which are more externally financed; however disclosure requirements hinder the results of those industrial sectors that are more externally financed

Does it pay to be socially responsible? Evidence from Spanish retail banking sector

This paper presents a theoretical and empirical analysis of strategic competition in retail banking when some of the financial firms are non-profit organisations that invest in social activities. Banking literature about competition is fairly large, but the strategic interaction between profit maximizing and non profit maximizers has not been extensively analysed except for Purroy and Salas (1999). In this paper, a completely different approach is taken. An adaptation of Hotelling’s two stage model of spatial competition is developed to take into account consumer perceptions respect to the two different types of financial institutions. The empirical analysis confirms that consumers take into account other features different from the price, such as social contribution or closer service to make a deposit or mortgage decision. These conclusions are of interest in the debate about a firm’s social or ethical activities. It is shown that if consumers value social activities, firms can improve their results by behaving socially responsible.Strategic competition; Hotelling´s model; Spanish banking; Corporate social responsibility

DIMENSIONAMIENTO DE LAS SECCIONES DE PLM DE LOS BATALLONES PARA EJECUTAR LAS TAREAS ENCOMENDADAS

EL trabajo consiste en realizar un análisis de los manuales actuales de las secciones de Plana Mayor y Batallones de Infantería. Seguidamente se realizan entrevista al personal destinado en las PLM,s de la BRIAC “Guadarrama XII” durante las practicas externas. Estas entrevistas muestran diferencias entre las plantillas reales y el Modulo de Planeamiento, así como entre las tareas encomendadas a estas secciones y las tareas que están consideradas en los manuales. Además se analizan el funcionamiento de las PLM en el ejército americano y en un Grupo de Artillería de Campaña. Realizando una comparativa de estos elementos se llega a una serie de conclusiones que permiten proponer un ejemplo de plana mayor dimensionada para cumplir con sus tareas encomendadas.<br /

Transformation of payment systems: The case of European Union enlargement

In this paper we present a general equilibrium model on payment choice at retail level. We analyze how the accession to an economic and monetary union, and the influence of new institutions may shape the evolution of consumers’ payments in newly acceded countries. The model suggests that accessing countries approach accepting group attitudes towards payment choices as a consequence of institutional pressure and technology development. We apply the results of the model to 2004 European Union enlargement process. Results confirm the relevance of institutional environment and technology development in retail payment system decisions of newly acceded countries.cash; payments; European Union enlargement.

Financial development, labor and market regulations and growth

This paper investigates the importance that market regulation and financial imperfections have on firm growth. We analyse institutions af- fecting labor market as Employment Protection Laws (EP) and Product Market Regulation (PM). We show that together with the beneficial effects of financial development, a firm will get less financing, and thus investless, in a weak financial market (finance effect), the strictness of product and labor market regulations also affect firm growth (labor effect). In particular, we show that the stricter the rules the more detrimental the influence on growth in sectoral value added for a large number of countries. We also show that the labor effect overcomes the positive finance effect

Analysis of deviance in household financial portfolio choice: evidence from Spain

We analyze empirically the household financial portfolio allocation decision using a variance decomposition technique that takes into account the constrained, non-normal nature of household portfolio allocation observations. We apply the technique to a relatively wide collection of financial assets. Results show that the main factors underlying household financial portfolio choice in Spain are age and net wealth. Among others, there is also evidence of sizeable risk aversion, education, and income effects, but very modest effects are associated to family size and having accounts in stand-alone Internet banks. Implications for policy are also derived

Effects of institutional environment and technology development on payment choice

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the combination of institutional factors and technology advances as determinants for the choice of payment instruments. The theoretical set up suggests that countries that enter into a new institutional environment adopt the attitudes of the accepting group towards the payment choices as a consequence of institutional pressure and technology development. We apply the results of the model to the European Union enlargement process of 2004. Our findings confirm the relevance of both institutional environment and technology development in retail payment choice decisions particular to Central and Eastern European Countries

Firm performance in regulated markets: the case of spanish defence industry

This paper studies the effects of legal reforms associated with defence and public procurement on firm performance. With this aim, a theoretical framework for the reaction of defence firms to regulatory changes is developed. Its predictions have been empirically assessed using the last reforms implemented in Spain. Our results suggest that these new regulations have allowed the main defence contractors to outperform the other defence contractors in terms of productivity, having no effect on profitability. These findings are in line with theoretical priors. Therefore, it can be claimed that governmental interventions have had an effect on firm performance. We also provide evidence that, while the procurement procedures and the contract law put into place in 2011 have principally affected the productivity of large firms, the centralization process established in 2014 has exerted a higher influence on SMEs