This paper introduces the updated and expanded version of the Financial Development and Structure Database and presents recent trends in structure and development of financial institutions and markets across countries. The authors add indicators on banking structure and financial globalization....

Remittances are a sizeable source of external financing for developing countries. In the L’Aquila 2009 G8 Summit, leaders pledged to reduce the cost of remittances by half in 5 years (from 10 to 5 percent). Yet, empirically, little is known about what drives the cost of remittances. Using...

Using both market-based and annual report-based approaches to measure lending specialization for a broad cross-section of banks and countries over the period 2002 to 2011, this paper is the first to empirically gauge the relationship between bank lending specialization and bank performance and...

This paper presents new data on the depth and penetration of mortgage markets across countries. There is a large variation across both dimensions of mortgage market development, across countries, but also-in terms of depth-within countries. Mortgage markets seem to develop only at relatively...

Using data from a survey of 91 banks in 45 countries, the authors characterize bank financing to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) around the world. They find that banks perceive the SME segment to be highly profitable, but perceive macroeconomic instability in developing countries and...