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Journal Article
Creditor protection and financial markets: empirical evidence and implications for Latin America
Although Latin American countries have made significant strides in reforming their financial markets, these markets remain shallow, implying a need for further reform. Stronger protection of creditor rights can improve the size and stability of credit markets and provide greater access to capital for small and medium-sized enterprises that operate under greater financial strictures. ; In discussing creditor protection?s impact on the size of financial markets, the authors first document the state of Latin American creditor protection. They then discuss the effect of enhanced creditor rights ...
Working Paper
Effective labor regulation and microeconomic flexibility
Microeconomic flexibility, by facilitating the process of creative destruction, is at the core of economic growth in modern market economies. The main reason why this process is not infinitely fast is the presence of adjustment costs, some of them technological, others institutional. Chief among the latter is labor market regulation. While few economists would object to such a view, its empirical support is rather weak. In this paper we revisit this hypothesis and find strong evidence for it. We use a new sectoral panel for 60 countries and a methodology suitable for such a panel. We find ...