This paper evaluates the importance of “property rights institutions”, which protect citizens against expropriation by the government and powerful elites, and “contracting institutions”, which enable private contracts between citizens. We exploit exogenous variation in both types of institutions driven by colonial history, and document strong firststage relationships between property rights ins...

the recent turmoil in global financial markets, associated with the u.S. subprime mortgage crisis, has raised important questions about the stability and integrity of the new international financial structure. these events represent the first real stress test of the world’s financial system since the late 1990s when the asian financial crisis, Russian debt default, and long-term capital Managem...

As financial institutions look for ways to reduce costs, manage risk, and extract more value from exponentially increasing amounts of data, technology will emerge as both a crucial enabler and competitive advantage. Financial institutions that invest in developing and managing more flexible infrastructure for mission-critical workloads will significantly improve return on investment (ROI), decr...