The emerging economies in the South Asian region have embarked on a bold reform process to develop the banking sector. This development has improved the transparency and accountability of the banking sector because these countries focused on best practice corporate governance for banks. In view...

This study assesses the state of micro-insurance in the country, identifies the players and their performance, and the challenges facing micro-insurance development. The term micro pertains to the capacity of a program to handle the small, sometime irregular cash flows of poor households, who...

This paper provides a conceptual basis for the price discovery potential for tradable market instruments and specifically the development of mortgage securitization in Asia and the potential dangers of such markets. Nonetheless we argue for the potential importance of securitization in Asia...

This paper looks at the issue of reforming financial regulatory structures from the New Institutional Economics perspective. In particular, it examines how the broader institutional environment prevailing in developing countries like the Philippines may affect the institutional arrangements for...

We set out to study stock price manipulation when the manipulator is in the role of an intermediary (broker). We find that in the absence of superior information, the broker can manipulate equilibrium outcomes without losing its credibility with respect to accurate forecasting. The result...

A butterfly in New York flaps its wingsand may finally cause a storm in BeijingWellthenhow about a devastating tsunami in New York? In the last monththe whole world watched the American financial crisis unfolding day-by-dayRipples from the Wall Street spread to each corner of the global...

This paper seeks to add to the current debate about financial development and growth in the emerging world by looking at how different financial systems evolve : how and why financial structures change during various stages of development, how best to measure them, and seeing what practical...

The recent financial crisis has shown that financial innovation can have devastating systemic impacts. International standard setters and national regulators response has been a global concerted effort to overhaul and tighten financial regulations. However, at a time of designing stricter...

Rapid growth in the number and size of sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) in recent years has occasioned a broad-ranging policy debate about how best to accommodate or, indeed, limit the participation of these funds in the worlds capital markets. The announcement in March 2007 that China would open...

This paper surveys the relationship between the government and the financial system in Japan, mainly from the viewpoint of financial stocks, to gain an overall perspective and identify where any problems lie. During this decade, it seems that the relationship between the government and the...