The paper assesses the degree of banking competition and efficiency in Italy?over time as well as compared to that in other countries, such as France, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The paper finds competition in the Italian banking sector has intensified in loan and...

Inflation-forecast targeting is state of the art for monetary policy. This book explores first principles, including managing short-term policy trade-offs. The book also outlines efficient operational procedures and reviews the experiences of Canada, the Czech Republic, and India. The analysis...

This paper examines the extent to which conclusions of cross-country studies of private savings are robust to allowing for the possible heterogeneity of savings behavior across countries and the inclusion of dynamics. It shows that neglecting heterogeneity and dynamics can lead to misleading...

Government spending plays a critical role in protecting and enforcing rights and civil liberties. Empirical evidence for a sample of industrial and developing countries shows that government expenditures on defense, law and order, social security, education, and health care are associated with...

Written by IMF's Legal Department, this book outlines the key issues involved in designing and implementing orderly and effective insolvency procedures, which play a critical role in fostering growth and competitiveness and may also assist in the prevention and resolution of financial crises....

This paper develops and tests two efficiency wage models of corruption in the civil service. Under fair wage models, civil service wages are an important determinant of corruption. Under shirking models, the level of wages is of secondary importance, as potential bribes dwarf wage income. The...