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...

Japan has responded swiftly to stabilize markets, and activity has begun to recover. The immediate priority is to repair damaged infrastructure and facilitate a swift recovery. Financial policies should protect against the risk of an economic slowdown and higher market volatility. Timely...

Various indicators place Cyprus’s banking system soundness ahead of emerging countries but behind advanced economies. This report discusses financial sector stability in Cyprus, using a combination of accounting-based and market-based indicators, and stress tests. Cypriot commercial banks...

This 2009 Article IV Consultation highlights that Singapore has been severely affected by the global downturn. The collapse in external demand has led to a sharp contraction in GDP, which fell by almost 13 percent in the first quarter of 2009. Executive Directors have observed that the floating...

The Executive Board of the IMF has concluded the consultation discussions with the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR). Hong Kong SAR has rebounded from the global financial crisis, and growth should be at 5¾ percent this year. Unemployment has fallen to low levels, and real incomes...

Although economic performance has remained good, difficulties in building consensus for institutional reform have caused an ill-affordable hiatus in economic policymaking. Robust economic activity absorbed a growing labor force and allowed the unemployment rate to decline continuously....

The objectives of this paper are: (1) to analyze an optimal portfolio rebalancing by a fund manager in response to a "volatility shock" in one of the asset markets, under sufficiently realistic assumptions about the fund manager's performance criteria and investment restrictions; and (2) to...

This paper takes stock of the current state of development of the financial systems in five Central European transition economies (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, the Slovak Republic, and Slovenia) that are also leading EU accession candidates. It presents both a progress report and an...

The paper examines the scope for cross-border spillovers among major EU banks using information contained in the stock prices and financial statements of these banks. The results suggest that spillovers within domestic banking systems generally remain more likely, but the number of significant...

This paper analyzes empirically the recent Asian financial crisis using high frequency data of exchange rates and stock indices of the Philippines and Thailand. Utilizing standard time-series techniques, this study confirms that there is evidence that developments in some sectoral...