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Real Interest Rate (RIR) has a profound impact on the well-functioning of any economy hence a good understanding of its behavior is a key policy element. Using a Keynesian framework, we model and empirically test the relationship of RIR to selected structural variables namely inequality, dependency, financial depth, and institutional set up. We employ a panel dataset comprised of 115 countries with annual frequency from the period 2000 to 2018. Considering the structure of the dataset and possible endogeneity in the model; System GMM is used to estimate regressions parameters. We found that inequality and dependency do not have a significant influence on RIR. Financial development contributes to improving efficiency while institutional set up has a quadratic relationship with RIR. The better institution first increases RIR; after passing a certain cut off; further institution development would improve efficiency. RIR is found to be significantly procyclical. Further elaboration on the model; also revealed two different global RIR regimes with 2008 as threshold. There is also a significant counter cycle impact of financial development: negative interaction effect with the business cycle.

Family firms were widely recognized to have a substantial contribution to the economy, especially in emerging economies. However, some previous studies reveal that family firms tend to be conservative and unwilling to take more risks. We extended the literature by investigating whether there was a difference in risk-taking behavior between family and non-family firms in the context of Indonesia. Moreover, the presence of women in the top management also considered negatively correlated with risk-taking strategy. Therefore, this study empirically examined the effects of family ownership and women in top management on a risk-taking strategy of firms. Using data of 336 publicly traded firms in Indonesia over 2012-2016, this study confirmed the negative effect of family ownership and women in top management on corporate risk-taking. Family ownership and involvement as the CEO of the firms negatively associated with the level of risk taking. Moreover, our results reveal that the presence of women was a matter more to decrease corporate risk-taking when they served in the board of directors rather than in the board of commissioners.

A substantial part of households and micro enterprises, particularly in developing countries including Indonesia, did not have access to formal financial institutions which then lead them to borrow money from illegal loan providers. Using an experimental study, we tested whether predatory loan, an illegal short-term loan with high interest rate, was preferable or not by comparing with pawnshop loan, bank loan and household’s limited saving when households confront with financial distress. We divided the participants into three groups: lower low, low, and upper low income. We found that predatory loan was preferable especially for lower low and low income group. Result also confirmed that even if the predatory loan charge was increased, the lower low- and low-income groups still prefer to ease their financial distress through predatory loans. Moreover, the longer the duration of the predatory loan, the higher its probability to be chosen as a funding source in times of household financial distress.