The EU is deliberating the introduction of an explicit ""European mandate"" for financial sector supervisors to supplement national mandates. Suggestions are made on (i) the formulation of a European mandate; (ii) the policy areas to which it should apply; (iii) which institutions should be given...

"The intensity of recent turbulence in financial markets has surprised nearly everyone. This paper searches out the root causes of the crisis, distinguishing them from scapegoating explanations that have been used in policy circles to divert attention from the underlying breakdown of incentives....

"Caprio and Honohan question the widespread belief that market discipline on banks cannot be effective in less developed financial environments. There is no systematic tendency for low-income countries to lack the prerequisites for market discipline. Offsetting factors to the weaker market and...

With the recent stock market frauds in markets around the world such as the Madoff case in the U.S. and the recent Satyam fraud in India, no nation can hold its head high and claim to have good corporate governance. The reality is that the problems of fraud, faulty audits, misleading accounts,...

This note reviews the main elements of the New Basel III global regulatory framework and its regulatory implications, as well as the menu of macro prudential regulatory options to consider for application to ensure more resilient banks and baking systems

Australia has a history of few bank failures, even fewer financial crises, and its banking sector emerged from the global financial crisis relatively well.1 With an eye toward international developments, the Australian authorities have taken commendable steps to strengthen the financial safety...

This paper presents the functional responsibilities of a central bank which is required to maintain systemic financial stability without having supervisory oversight of individual financial institutions. Although the Financial Services Authority (FSA) has responsibility for supervising...

This note examines the observance by the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus (NBRB) of the good practices on transparency in monetary policy. The transparency analysis was based on a review of relevant laws and regulations and the International Monetary Fund (IMF s) code of good practices...

In this paper we construct indices of transparency of monetary and financial policies, based on self-evaluations carried out by 135 IMF member countries in 1999, and use them to identify transparency patterns across different policies and country groups. We find that across all countries,...