The UK financial market has been severely affected by the recent financial crisis. The crisis has exposed weaknesses in the supervisory framework as well as that for crisis management and resolution. This paper reviews the supervisory and regulatory framework and the many reforms that have...

The financial sector has emerged as the main economic engine over the past two decades. The comparative advantages of placing financial activities in Luxembourg have mostly been in terms of an adaptive legislative and regulatory framework and low taxation. As a result, Luxembourg is today one of...

This paper aims at providing an overview of the theoretical considerations and a review of the empirical literature on the relationship between finance and growth. Section I describes the role of financial development in economic growth at the macro level, both theoretically and empirically....

The global financial and economic crisis has struck Iceland with extreme force. Iceland’s three main banks, accounting for almost all of the banking system, failed in October 2008. They were unable to resist the deterioration in global financial markets following the failure of Lehman...

Policy efforts to revitalise entrepreneurship and investment in Spain are key to generating growth and new jobs. The government has a substantial reform program to make it easier to do business in Spain, which should in some cases be deepened. Boosting economic growth requires a new generation...

This paper examines how a range of stability-oriented regulatory policies for banking and insurance are related to selected stability and competition outcomes in these sectors. Based on survey information on financial market regulation, policy indicators for eight areas of prudential banking...

The global crisis exposed weaknesses in the Hungarian financial system that pose risks to financial stability. Excessive risk-taking by banks and households had been masked by relatively stable exchange rates, the expected early adoption of the euro and unusually lax credit conditions in...

Bank regulation might have contributed to or even reinforced adverse systemic shocks that materialised during the financial crisis. Capital regulation based on risk-weighted assets encourages innovation designed to circumvent regulatory requirements and shifts banks’ focus away from their core...

The 2008-09 global financial crisis did not result in the failure of any major financial institution in Israel, but it did reveal vulnerabilities in the non-banking sector . particularly in the corporate-bond market. Conservative regulation of the banking sector helped this segment avoid a...

The euro area financial system took excessive risks during the global credit boom, which in some countries led to an unsustainable increase in credit, higher asset prices and housing booms. This process helped to fuel large imbalances within the euro area. Banks played a key role in channelling...