At the height of the Great Depression a number of leading U.S. economists advanced a proposal for monetary reform that became known as the Chicago Plan. It envisaged the separation of the monetary and credit functions of the banking system, by requiring 100% reserve backing for deposits. Irving...

This paper estimates the effectiveness of capital controls in response to inflow surges in Brazil, Colombia, Korea, and Thailand in the 2000s. Controls are generally associated with a decrease in inflows and a lengthening of maturities, but the relationship is not statistically significant in...

This paper discusses Colombia’s 2005 Article IV Consultation, Fourth Review Under the Stand-By Arrangement (SBA), and Requests for Waiver of Nonobservance of Performance Criteria. Real economic growth in Colombia recovered to 4 percent a year in 2003–04. The national unemployment...

This paper evaluates the Observance of Standards and Codes on the International Organization of Securities Commission (IOSCO) Objectives and Principles of Securities Regulation for New Zealand. New Zealand equity markets are comparatively small with market capitalization of about 44 percent of...

This paper proposes an integrated and risk-based approach to the sequencing and coordination of reforms to develop domestic financial markets. The paper argues that there is a hierarchy of financial markets that reflects the complexity of risks in each market and the interlinkages among markets....

Islamic lending transactions are governed by the precepts of the shariah, which bans interest and stipulates that income must be derived as return from entrepreneurial investment. Since Islamic finance is predicated on asset backing and specific credit participation in identified business risk,...

In trend with a global pattern and following recommendations of the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the number of stock markets in African countries has increased dramatically over the last ten years. Despite a scarcity of studies on the impact of stock markets on...

Small emerging economies, despite their significant growth, lack the scale to develop thriving capital markets from their local investor and issuer base that are able to deliver the benefits of a large, mature market. Slovenia is such an example. Despite the necessary infrastructure in place,...

This paper consolidates previous work on the development of secondary markets for government securities, and focuses on the sequencing of measures necessary for their development. Six main lessons are identified: (i) a commitment to achieving and maintaining a stable macroeconomic environment,...

A taxonomy of existing and planned automated trade execution systems in financial markets is provided. Over 50 automated market structures in 16 countries are analyzed. The classification scheme is organized around the principle that such markets consist of an algorithm that performs a trade...