"The benefits of financial development and globalization have come with continuing fragility in financial sectors. Periodic crises have had real but heterogeneous welfare impacts and not just for poor people; indeed, some of the conditions that foster deep and persistent poverty, such as lack of...

"The intensity of recent turbulence in financial markets has surprised nearly everyone. This paper searches out the root causes of the crisis, distinguishing them from scapegoating explanations that have been used in policy circles to divert attention from the underlying breakdown of incentives....

"Caprio and Honohan question the widespread belief that market discipline on banks cannot be effective in less developed financial environments. There is no systematic tendency for low-income countries to lack the prerequisites for market discipline. Offsetting factors to the weaker market and...