Consolidation in the global banking industry has resulted in the emergence of financial conglomerates that conduct an extensive range of businesses with a group structure. To date, however, few studies have investigated the performance features of such groups. This study aims to extend the literature by evaluating the cost characteristics (scale, scope and x-efficiency), profit efficiency and p...

In the data country portfolios are heavily biased toward domestic assets. Standard onegood international macro models predict that, due to the presence of non-diversifiable labor income risk, country portfolios should be heavily biased toward foreign assets; this discrepancy constitutes the international diversification puzzle (Baxter and Jermann, 1997). We show that a simple extension of one-g...

Higher education throughout the world faces the dilemma of reconciling its clearly increasing importance—to individuals and nations alike—with its steeply rising costs that almost everywhere seem to be outpacing the ability of government to meet with tax revenue alone. The immediate result in many countries is increasing institutional austerity manifested by overcrowding, demoralization and out...