As financial markets become more global, the question arises whether any country specific considerations are still relevant for insurance companies’ capital structure. This research examines this question with firm-level data across a broad range of countries including those in developing markets. What we find is that the optimal capital structure of insurance companies is not homogeneous acros...

Prevailing models of capital markets capture a limited form of social influence and information transmission, in which the beliefs and behavior of an investor affect others only through market price, information transmission and processing is simple (without thoughts and feelings), and there is no localization in the influence of an investor on others. In reality, individuals often process verb...

Macroeconomic analyses of capital controls face a number of imposing challenges and have yielded mixed results to date. This paper takes a different approach and surveys an emerging literature that evaluates various microeconomic effects of capital controls and capital account liberalization. Several key themes emerge. First, capital controls tend to reduce the supply of capital, raise the cost...