Financial Constraints and Market Failures


Book Description

An Italian study group made up of seven economists report their findings on how the new Keynesian economics has reacted to challenges from new classical economics by strengthening the analytical power of its models. First they discuss the theoretical unde




The Infrastructure Finance Challenge


Book Description

Infrastructure and its effects on economic growth, social welfare, and sustainability receive a great deal of attention today. There is widespread agreement that infrastructure is a key dimension of global development and that its impact reaches deep into the broader economy with important and multifaceted implications for social progress. At the same time, infrastructure finance is among the most complex and challenging areas in the global financial architecture. Ingo Walter, Professor Emeritus of Finance, Corporate Governance and Ethics at the Stern School of Business, New York University, and his team of experts tackle the issue by focussing on key findings backed by serious theoretical and empirical research. The result is a set of viable guideposts for researchers, policy-makers, students and anybody interested in the varied challenges of the contemporary economy.




SMEs in Developing Asia


Book Description

A vibrant stratum of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is critical for the growth and development of Asian economies. These enterprises generate employment, contribute to investment, participate in value chains, and support innovation. SMEs that seek to sustain and grow their operations, however, face a variety of constraints, many of which are directly related to size. These so-called "size-induced market failures" create a role for public policy interventions by governments throughout the region. This book focuses on the market failures encountered by enterprises in the key areas of technology and innovation, credit and finance, education and skills, and market access. Obstacles to participation in the rapidly expanding regional and global value chains are also examined. Among a variety of issues, the book explores the "missing middle" in credit facilities for enterprises that are beyond microcredit but not yet able to secure regular loans from banks. The book investigates the barriers to innovation and how best to combine internal and external research and development. It also looks at the hiring versus training options to build human capital. The various chapter authors examine national and multicountry experiences in South and East Asia, ranging from those in Pakistan to Japan.




A Modern Guide to Financial Shocks and Crises


Book Description

Offering a comprehensive guide to financial shocks and crises, this book explores their increasing occurrence in current market economies, as well as their power to wrench the macroeconomy. The book discusses three critical questions: what causes financial shocks; which channels may exacerbate their impact; and what policies could help avoid them or limit their negative effect on the economy and society at large.




Government Failure Versus Market Failure


Book Description

When should government intervene in market activity? When is it best to let market forces simply take their natural course? How does existing empirical evidence about government performance inform those decisions? Brookings economist Clifford Winston uses these questions to frame a frank empirical assessment of government economic intervention in Government Failure vs.




Financing Patterns Around the World


Book Description

Using a firm-level survey database covering 48 countries, Beck, Demirgüç-Kunt, and Maksimovic investigate whether differences in financial and legal development affect the way firms finance their investments. The results indicate that external financing of investments is not a function of institutions, although the form of external finance is. The authors identify two explanations for this. First, legal and financial institutions affect different types of external finance in offsetting ways. Second, firm size is an important determinant of whether firms can have access to different types of external finance. Larger firms with financing needs are more likely to use external finance compared with small firms. The results also indicate that these firms are more likely to use external finance in more developed financial systems, particularly debt and equity finance. The authors also find evidence consistent with the pecking order theory in financially developed countries, particularly for large firms. This paper--a product of Finance, Development Research Group--is part of a larger effort in the group to understand firms' access to financial services.




formal versus informal finance: evidence from china


Book Description

Abstract: China is often mentioned as a counterexample to the findings in the finance and growth literature since, despite the weaknesses in its banking system, it is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. The fast growth of Chinese private sector firms is taken as evidence that it is alternative financing and governance mechanisms that support China's growth. This paper takes a closer look at firm financing patterns and growth using a database of 2,400 Chinese firms. The authors find that a relatively small percentage of firms in the sample utilize formal bank finance with a much greater reliance on informal sources. However, the results suggest that despite its weaknesses, financing from the formal financial system is associated with faster firm growth, whereas fund raising from alternative channels is not. Using a selection model, the authors find no evidence that these results arise because of the selection of firms that have access to the formal financial system. Although firms report bank corruption, there is no evidence that it significantly affects the allocation of credit or the performance of firms that receive the credit. The findings suggest that the role of reputation and relationship based financing and governance mechanisms in financing the fastest growing firms in China is likely to be overestimated.




Encyclopedia of Energy, Natural Resource, and Environmental Economics


Book Description

Every decision about energy involves its price and cost. The price of gasoline and the cost of buying from foreign producers; the price of nuclear and hydroelectricity and the costs to our ecosystems; the price of electricity from coal-fired plants and the cost to the atmosphere. Giving life to inventions, lifestyle changes, geopolitical shifts, and things in-between, energy economics is of high interest to Academia, Corporations and Governments. For economists, energy economics is one of three subdisciplines which, taken together, compose an economic approach to the exploitation and preservation of natural resources: energy economics, which focuses on energy-related subjects such as renewable energy, hydropower, nuclear power, and the political economy of energy resource economics, which covers subjects in land and water use, such as mining, fisheries, agriculture, and forests environmental economics, which takes a broader view of natural resources through economic concepts such as risk, valuation, regulation, and distribution Although the three are closely related, they are not often presented as an integrated whole. This Encyclopedia has done just that by unifying these fields into a high-quality and unique overview. The only reference work that codifies the relationships among the three subdisciplines: energy economics, resource economics and environmental economics. Understanding these relationships just became simpler! Nobel Prize Winning Editor-in-Chief (joint recipient 2007 Peace Prize), Jason Shogren, has demonstrated excellent team work again, by coordinating and steering his Editorial Board to produce a cohesive work that guides the user seamlessly through the diverse topics This work contains in equal parts information from and about business, academic, and government perspectives and is intended to serve as a tool for unifying and systematizing research and analysis in business, universities, and government




The Great Recession


Book Description

Since publication of Hetzel's The Monetary Policy of the Federal Reserve (Cambridge University Press, 2008), the intellectual consensus that had characterized macroeconomics has disappeared. That consensus emphasized efficient markets, rational expectations and the efficacy of the price system in assuring macroeconomic stability. The 2008–9 recession not only destroyed the professional consensus about the kinds of models required to understand cyclical fluctuations but also revived the credit-cycle or asset-bubble explanations of recession that dominated thinking in the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century. These 'market-disorder' views emphasize excessive risk taking in financial markets and the need for government regulation. The present book argues for the alternative 'monetary-disorder' view of recessions. A review of cyclical instability over the last two centuries places the 2008–9 recession in the monetary-disorder tradition, which focuses on the monetary instability created by central banks rather than on a boom-bust cycle in financial markets.




Post-Keynesian Growth Theory


Book Description

Post-Keynesian Growth Theory is a collection of 18 articles by Marc Lavoie, published between 1995 and 2020, with an extended foreword by Eckhard Hein. Marc Lavoie’s introduction recalls how he became attracted to the post-Keynesian theory of growth more than 45 years ago and explains how and why this book came about.