In just over a decade after independence, the three Baltic countries, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, have transformed themselves into fully functioning, small open-market economies that will be joining the European Union. Capital Markets and Financial Intermediation in The Baltics analyzes the...

This Technical Note analyzes and quantifies the effect of aging in Japan-both at the national and regional levels-on the nature of financial intermediation. Mounting demographic headwinds constitute a major challenge for regional financial institutions in Japan. According to prefectural...

The Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS) was established by the IMF in 1996 to guide members that already had, or that might seek, access to international capital markets in providing key economic and financial data to the public. In the following year, the IMF established the General Data...