Pakistan undertook major financial sector reforms starting in the late 1980s. The effects of these reforms on the profitability and cost and revenue efficiency of the banking sector are evaluated. The revenue performance of all banks, and especially the privatized banks, improved significantly,...

The condition of banking systems in developing countries strongly influences the design and effectiveness of economic adjustment policies. Bank portfolio weakness can limit the flexibility of interest rate policy, the scope of financial reforms, and the conduct of monetary and fiscal policy....

The Institutional View (IV) on the Liberalization and Management of Capital Flows, adopted in 2012, provides the basis for consistent advice, and where relevant, assessments on policies related to capital flows. This paper reviews the IV, informed by advances in research, notably the work on an...

Capital flows have increased significantly in recent years and are a key aspect of the global monetary system. They offer potential benefits to countries, but their size and volatility can also pose policy challenges. The Fund needs to be in a position to provide clear and consistent advice with...

The focus of the paper is on five key financial stability issues in Emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs), which have been selected on the basis of their degree of materiality for a reasonably broad range of EMDEs; their implications for regulatory, supervisory or other financial...

Open market operations are the major instruments of monetary control in industrial countries and are becoming important in developing countriesand countries in transition. This paper shows how open market operationsare related to other monetary instruments, discusses the role of the market and...

This study characterizes volatility dynamics in external emerging bond markets and examines how prices and volatility respond to news about macroeconomic fundamentals. As in mature bond markets, macroeconomic surprises in external emerging bond markets are found to a¤ect both conditional...