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A number of recent papers have raised serious questions about the validity of the German dominance hypothesis, using Granger (temporal) causality tests. If Germany dominates within the European Monetary System, then German monetary policy, measured by either money stocks or interest rates should Granger (temporally) cause other EMS countries’ monetary policies, but not vice versa. Empirical evidence leads analysts to conclude that the German dominance hypothesis is invalid, or at a minimum, in need of significant reformulation. Explores similar Granger causality tests, using the recent cointegration and error‐correction modelling strategy, for the US and a group of developing countries during the Bretton Woods period, where conventional wisdom suggests that US policy dominated. Finds significant evidence of two‐way causality between the US money stock and the money stocks of a large number of developing countries. These findings raise a serious questions about the interpretation and/or appropriateness of the Granger causality test for investigating policy dominance hypotheses.

The international linkages between money stocks (and inflation rates) has received much attention. Focuses on the advantages and disadvantages of fixed and flexible exchange rate regimes. Fixed rate systems require credible commitments to the rules of the game by the central banks involved. Credible commitment can be achieved through cooperative (symmetric) or coercive (asymmetric) regimes. Did the USA (Germany) dominate other developed (European) countries during the Bretton Woods (European Monetary) system? Examines the linkages, if any, between the USA (German) money stock and money stocks in other developed (European) countries, using the cointegration and error‐correction methodology. Finds evidence that USA (German) money stock did affect other (European) countries′ money stocks during fixed exchange rates. Finds, also, reverse causality which raises serious questions about either the dominance of the USA (Germany) within the Bretton Woods (European Monetary) system, or the usefulness of causality tests is answering such questions.

This study aims to analyze the impact of corporate governance on firms’ external financing decisions in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

The authors analyzed a unique set of panel data comprising 2,425 nonfinancial firms whose shares are traded on stock exchanges in countries in the MENA region. The authors fitted an ordinary least squares model to estimate the regression coefficients. The authors performed a sensitivity analysis using alternative measures of the critical variables and an endogeneity analysis using instrumental variable methods with plausible external instruments.

The results revealed that corporate governance characteristics of firms are strongly associated with their degree of leverage. They also showed that macrofinancial conditions, financial regulations, corporate governance enforcement and social conditions mitigate the impact of corporate governance on firms’ financing decisions.

A larger sample size will further improve the results; however, this is difficult and depends on the extent to which increasing disclosure practices allow more corporate information to reach international databases.

This study provides new evidence on the role of corporate governance on firms’ financing decisions and documents the essential mitigating role of institutions, alerting managers to consider them.

This study is a novel attempt. Based on information from different data sources, this study explored the predictive power of corporate governance, ownership structures and other firm-specific characteristics in explaining corporate leverage in MENA countries. Overall, the analysis provides new evidence of the association between corporate governance and capital structure in the MENA region, highlighting the critical role of institutions.