While deregulated financial markets and strong competition are commonly viewed as prerequisites for successful economic development, recent empirical evidence suggests that financial liberalization, if not well phased, can lead to costly financial crises. This paper focuses on the roles of...

India’s financial system compares favorably internationally, but rising credit risk and liquidity pressures are putting it under strain. The staff report for India’s 2008 Article IV Consultation discusses economic developments and policies. The authorities have already taken...

Emerging European countries have made large strides in developing their local capital markets since the early-1990s. However, the rate of development has been widely disparate across countries and market segments, underpinned by the varying degrees of progress made in key areas such as...

Capital markets in the East African Community (EAC) face common challenges of low capitalization and liquidity, but to different degrees. EAC member countries have made noticeable progress in developing domestic capital markets through a regional approach, removing constraints on capital...

This paper studies the spillover effects both within the bond markets for individual U.S. states and between the latter and the market for U.S. Treasury securities. We perform the Forbes and Rigobon (2002) spillover test using daily bond yield data over the period 2005 to 2011. Results are...

This paper investigates the contagion from Russia to Brazil in late 1998 under two dimensions— players involved and the timing of events. The data does not seem to reflect a compensatory liquidation of assets story by international institutional investors. It does contribute, however, to the...

This paper reviews and draws lessons from the stabilization and reform program that Korea implemented in response to the 1997-98 crisis. The economy recovered quickly from the deep recession in 1998 and its vulnerability to a balance of payments crisis has been reduced sharply. Significant...

Recent improvements in fiscal positions in advanced countries have sharply curtailed the issuance of government securities and created the possibility that government securities could disappear in some countries. The possibility that this might occur in the United States has attracted the most...

Using a panel of 27 countries, we analyze the effects of stock market liberalization on financial and macroeconomic development. We find that liberalization is associated with a short-term increase in real private investment growth of about 14 percentage points cumulatively in the four years...