The Nascent Market of Security Token Offerings
The years 2017 and 2018 saw an influx of ventures raising substantial amounts of money through initial coin offerings (ICOs). The Ethereum blockchain greatly facilitated the spectacular surge of ICOs,…
How Banks Affect Investment and Growth: New Evidence
Banks fulfil several key functions in the economy. They improve the allocation of scarce capital by extending credit to where it is most productive, as well as allowing households to…
Crowdfunding: Funding Dynamics and Platform Growth
In a recent study (available here), we examine the microeconomic underpinnings of the performance and growth of crowdfunding platforms. Our empirical exercises are conducted on Ulule and KissKissBankBank, two platforms…
Network Effects in Crowdfunding
The advances in FinTech are concomitant with the development of digital platforms, such as Ethereum, LendingClub, or PayPal. The decisions that users make on such platforms are highly interdependent, insofar…
Voting Rights and Financial Systems: Evidence from Two Centuries of Suffrage Reforms
Extending voting rights to broader segments of the population considerably affects the way countries finance their economies. This is the key finding of our new research recently published in the…
Lobbying on Regulatory Enforcement Actions
A major task of financial economics and political science is to explain the raison d’être, but also the consequences, of the influence of the banking industry on the government. When…
Lobbying and the Efficiency of Bank Sales
Bank lobbying can distort regulatory decisions by introducing private incentives into the decision-making process. Regulators are criticised for serving both their own interests, and those of the banks they regulate,…
Lobbying on the Sale of Failed Banks
The aftermath of the financial crisis revealed failures and gaps in regulatory actions. In particular, regulators have been criticized for serving special interests—not only of the banks they regulate but…
The Study of Political Institutions at the Centre of Financial Economics
In a recent survey of the literature on the political economy of finance (available here), we argue that understanding the evolution and functioning of financial systems cannot be fully appreciated…