This note provides a set of high-level recommendations that can guide national regulatory and supervisory responses to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic and offers an overview of measures taken across jurisdictions to date. The banking sector plays a critical role in mitigating the...

This chapter provides a comparative perspective of competition policy and monetary policy. Monetary policy and competition policy are two key components of public policies needed for a market economy to function well, and indeed to exist, just as money and the market are two defining elements of...

"This volume provides the most comprehensive estimates of worldwide energy subsidies currently available, drawing on data from 176 countries in the areas of petroleum products, natural gas, coal, and electricity. It lays out an analysis of "how to do" energy subsidy reform, drawing on insights...

Energy subsidies have wide-ranging economic consequences. While aimed at protecting consumers, subsidies aggravate fiscal imbalances, crowd-out priority public spending, and depress private investment, including in the energy sector. Subsidies also distort resource allocation by encouraging...

This supplement presents country case studies reviewing energy subsidy reform experiences, which are the basis for the reform lessons identified in the main paper. The selection of countries for the case studies reflects the availability of data and of previously documented evidence on...

Portugal’s financial system is sound, well-managed and competitive, with shorter-term risks and vulnerabilities well contained, and with the system buttressed by a strong financial policy framework. Portuguese banks’ profitability, asset quality, and solvency have held up well in recent...