Bangladesh’s second Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper -- “Steps Towards Change: National Strategy for Accelerated Poverty Reduction II (NSAPR II)†– provides a framework for implementing the government’s agenda during FY09-FY11. First prepared by a Caretaker...

We test for the existence of a moral hazard effect attributable to official crisis lending by analyzing the evolution of sovereign bond spreads in emerging markets before and after the Russian crisis. The nonbailout of Russia in August 1998 is interpreted as an event that decreased the perceived...

In this paper we identify some of the main factors behind systemic risk in a set of international large-scale complex banks using the novel CoVaR approach. We find that short-term wholesale funding is a key determinant in triggering systemic risk episodes. In contrast, we find no evidence that a...

This paper seeks to draw lessons from the IMF’s experience in handling financial crises around the globe over the past ten years that are relevant to the challenges faced by countries in Latin America, especially in the wake of the recent crisis in Argentina. Experience suggests that...

This paper examines the regulatory and supervisory implications stemming from the dominance of large and complex financial institutions, drawing on the recent Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP) mission work on Sweden. The analysis highlights the importance of consolidated supervision, of...

This paper presents evidence on the relative importance of alternative contagion channels during the Thai, Russian, and Brazilian crises. Results show that when crises are measured by changes in sovereign bond spreads, financial competition seems to explain almost all contagion episodes....

While a number of emerging market crises were characterized by widespread contagion during the 1990s, more recent crises (notably, in Argentina) have been mostly contained within national borders. This has led some observers to wonder whether contagion might have become a feature of the past,...

The G-20 Data Gaps Initiative has called for the IMF to develop standard measures of tail risk, which we identify in this paper with systemic risk. To understand the conditions under which tail risk is present, it is first necessary to develop a measure of what constitutes a systemic stress, or...

This assessment of Financial Sector Supervision and Regulation for Samoa provides an overview of legal and institutional frameworks. Compliance with the Basel Core Principles (BCPs) for the supervision of international and domestic banks has improved considerably. Supervision of domestic banks...