The debate about the Tobin Tax, and other financial transaction taxes (FTT), gives rise to strong views both for and against. Unfortunately, little of this debate is based on the now considerable body of evidence about the impact of such taxes. This review attempts to synthesise what we know from the available theoretical and empirical literature about the impact of FTTs on volatility in financ...

On September 4, 2002, the SEC implemented a de minimis exemption to the trade-through rule for three active ETFs, allowing markets to execute trades at prices up to three cents worse than those posted elsewhere. Relaxing the trade-through rule does not worsen ETF market quality. Effective and realized spreads are essentially unchanged or slightly smaller post-event, and prices become slightly m...

We use panel data on the number of new firm registrations in 92 countries to study how the magnitude of reforms affects its impact on new firm registrations. We find that small reforms, in general less than 40% reduction in costs, days or procedures required for business registration, do not have a significant effect on new firm creation. This suggests that small reforms do not have the intende...

The Securities and Exchange Commission adopted Rule 11Ac1-5 on November 15, 2000. The rule requires market centers to make monthly electronic disclosures of basic information regarding execution quality. The rule is intended to empower market forces with the means to achieve a more competitive and efficient national market system by increasing the visibility of execution quality. We find that t...

The aim of this paper is to study the relationship between the shadow economy and corruption as determinants of public debt in the Spanish Autonomous Communities. In addition, we construct a Corruption Perception Index for those regions. Our data constitute panel data for the period 2000–2012. The results show that the volume of the shadow economy has a significant and positive impact on region...

This survey summarizes and analyzes theoretical, empirical and experimental research that addresses limit order book transparency in securities markets. We conclude that changes in market design that alter transparency have far reaching but complex impacts on market quality, market efficiency and price discovery. We suggest that future research into the impact of transparency choices in market ...

This paper assesses the effect of political institutions on stock market performance in 14 African countries for which stock market data is available for the period 1990-2010. The estimation technique used is a Two-Stage-Least Squares Instrumental Variable methodology. Political regime channels of democracy, polity and autocracy are instrumented with legal-origins, religious-legacies, income-le...

We explore the relation between international financial integration and the level of entrepreneurial activity in a country. Using a unique firm level data set of approximately 24 million firms in nearly 100 countries in 2004 and 1999, we find suggestive evidence that international financial integration has been associated with higher levels of entrepreneurial activity. Our results are robust to...

We explore the relation between international financial integration and the level of entrepreneurial activity in a country. Using a unique data set of approximately 24 million firms in nearly 100 countries in 1999 and 2004, we find suggestive evidence that international financial integration has been associated with higher levels of entrepreneurial activity. Our results are robust to using vari...

The development of the financial system is shown, both historically and in contemporary data, to be adversely affected by inequality in the distribution of land. To accommodate these empirical findings, a theory is developed that highlights the incentives of landowners to oppose competition in the financial sector. The theory provides an explanation for the co-incident development of the financ...