Theory suggests that the effect of banking market concentration on financial stability is mediated by several competing variables. Using a sample of 68 countries from 1997 to 2015, this paper proposes a unified empirical framework to test for the simultaneous presence and impact of the mediators...

This paper estimates an early warning system for predicting systemic banking crises in a sample of low income countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Since the average duration of crises in this sample of countries is longer than one year, the predictive performance of standard binomial logit models is...

This paper presents evidence on implementation of the World Bank Group and Financial Sector Reform and Strengthening Initiative "Principles for Public Credit Guarantee Schemes for Small and Medium Enterprises" . The evidence is based on a self-assessment of 60 schemes in 54 countries. Overall,...

The purpose of this paper is to study the dynamics of growth and convergence in Spain for the period 1965-1995. We analyse the evolution of the per capita income distribution across Spanish provinces and estimate the effects on this evolution of factors such as private, human and public capital,...

This paper discusses the engagement of the European Investment Bank Group (EIB Group) with the financing and support of SMEs, both within the European Union (EU) as well as EU Candidate Countries and the Balkans. Indeed, lending and providing financial support to SMEs is one of the key core...

Recent episodes of global financial stress have underscored the importance of individual banks to the stability of their own or even the global financial system. Against this backdrop and to respond to the need of World Bank Group staff for a wider diagnostic toolkit, we have developed the BRI,...

Financial repression resurfaced in the wake of the global financial crisis and might become a common feature in the post Covid-19 world. To advance knowledge and inform policy advice, this paper presents a new database on interest rate controls, a popular form of financial repression, based on a...

Financial repression resurfaced in the wake of the global financial crisis and may become a common feature in the post Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) world. To advance knowledge and inform policy advice, this paper presents a new database on interest rate controls, a popular form of financial...

This paper revisits trends in bank privatization and analyzes their economic impact over the past 25 years. Building on a novel data set of privatization events for 70 developed and developing countries, it shows that bank privatization became more frequent since the Global Financial Crisis,...

This paper attempts to study the impact of Brazilian Development Bank credit on resource misallocation in Brazil, using manufacturing firm-level data from 2003-14. The paper first estimates measures of resource misallocation based on Hsieh and Klenow (2009), documenting high variation in firms'...