European Association of Banking and Financial History (eabh) in conversation (on zoom) with Aldo Musacchio (Brandeis International Business School) and  Daniel Díaz (Universidad de Cantabria)

in cooperation with IBF and Leibniz Institute SAFE

discussant: Reinhard H. Schmidt (Goethe University Frankfurt)

How well do States’ Banks do?

Development banks are seen as an important tool to solve market imperfections, alleviate capital scarcity and fund long term infrastructure projects. At the same time they are often criticised for supporting politically well connected industrialists and political regimes.

Despite this controversy and the relevance of these state banks in many countries, empirically studies are rare. Aldo, Daniel and their  colleagues set out to fill this gap and will, for the first time, share their research findings with a wider international audience.

They take a comparative look and discuss distinct market failures, how they were addressed by state owned banks and how they map into different policy tools that have been used by the banks.