The recent financial crisis emphasised the need for effective financial stability analyses and tools for detecting systemic risk. This paper looks at assessment of banking sector resilience through stress testing. We argue such analyses are valuable even in emerging economies that suffer from...

This paper examines motivations for large firms to choose an Islamic loan over a conventional loan. This investigation helps understanding the causes of the expansion of Islamic finance activities. We employ a dataset of Islamic and conventional syndicated loans from countries from the Middle...

The Russian banking sector has experienced enormous growth rates during the last 6-7 years. The rapid growth of assets has, however, contributed to a decrease in the capital adequacy ratio, thus influencing the ability of banks to cope with risk. Using quarterly data spanning from 1999 to 2007...

The paper presents an econometric study of the two bank ratings assigned by Moody's Investors Service. According to Moody’s methodology, foreign-currency long-term deposit ratings are assigned on the basis of Bank Financial Strength Ratings (BFSR), taking into account “external bank support...

The recent financial crisis has reopened the debate on the impact of informal and formal finance on firm growth in developing countries. Using unique survey data, we find that informal finance is associated with higher sales growth for small firms and lower sales growth for large firms. We...

Better developed legal and political institutions result in greater availability of reliable firm-specific information. When stock prices reflect more firm-specific information there will be less stock price synchronicity. This paper traces the experience of China, an economy undergoing dramatic...

This study examines how bribery influences bank debt ratios for a large sample of firms from 14 transition countries. We combine information on bribery practices from the BEEPS survey with firm-level accounting data from the Amadeus database. Bribery is measured by the frequency of extra...

This study investigates the effectiveness of government intervention in rescuing bearish markets in a transition economy. Focusing on a pre- and a post-intervention period, the findings reveal that government intervention successfully rescued bearish markets in China and led to a fundamental...

We review some aspects of financial dollarization in Russia, applying the main relevant theories to analyze the dynamics of several dollarization indicators. An econometric model of the short run dynamics of deposit and loan dollarization is estimated for the last decade. We find that ruble...

This paper reviews recent regulatory and policy changes that affect the Chinese central government's ownership and authority over the capital allocations of strategic state-owned enterprises (SOE). The paper examines the reform of the central government's relationship with key SOEs as a...