This paper provides an overview of the most important structured finance instruments in the context of the development of the financial turmoil that started in the third quarter of 2007 and continued into 2008. These financial market tensions were triggered by concerns about exposures of...

This paper assesses financial sector development in Latin America, both in the banking system and in the capital markets. After a brief review of the explanatory factors and the definitions of financial development found in the literature, Latin American countries are classified in groups of...

After a brief review of the literature on the determinants of financial development, the paper reviews the Asian and European financial systems in terms of their size and efficiency. It also compares the steps taken in the two regions in the quest for financial development and stability, which...

We propose a new method for analysing multiperiod stress scenarios for portfolio credit risk more systematically than in the current practice of macro stress testing. Our method quantifies the plausibility of scenarios by considering the distance of the stress scenario from an average scenario....

European finance is becoming increasingly cross-border, while the European architecture for safeguarding financial stability —including decision-making processes for providing financial-stability public goods— have remained decentralized with some explicit mechanisms for coordination across...

This paper reviews the impact of the global economic and financial crisis on two distinct emerging market regions: Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe (CESEE) and Latin America. Similar to other emerging economies, both regions were initially surprisingly resilient as the crisis gathered...

In this study it is attempted to estimate the amount of speculation in foreign exchange market.

The potential negative consequences of high financial volatility have been an important concern recently. Although its empirical relevance has not been proved conclusively, clear theoretic and intuitive arguments justify this concern. Many efforts have been conducted, therefore, to determine...

We propose a model that delivers endogenous variations in term spreads driven primarily by banks’ portfolio decision and their appetite to bear the risk of maturity transformation. We first show that fluctuations of the future profitability of banks’ portfolios affect their ability to cover...

A remarkable fact of the mushrooming remittances market is the absence of commercial banks as relevant players. Furthermore, remittances have been identified as a potential catalyst for the financial deepening of receiving countries through higher access to banking services by migrants'...