"Levy-Yeyati, Martinez Peria, and Schmukler show that systemic risk exerts a significant impact on the behavior of depositors, sometimes overshadowing their responses to standard bank fundamentals. Systemic risk can affect market discipline both regardless of and through bank fundamentals....

"The intensity of recent turbulence in financial markets has surprised nearly everyone. This paper searches out the root causes of the crisis, distinguishing them from scapegoating explanations that have been used in policy circles to divert attention from the underlying breakdown of incentives....

"This paper studies whether compliance with the Basel Core Principles for Effective Banking Supervision (BCP) improves bank soundness. BCP compliance assessments provide a unique source of information about the quality of bank supervision and regulation around the world. The authors find a...

"There is a wide cross-country variation in the institutional structure of bank failure resolution, including the role of the deposit insurer. The authors use quantitative analysis for 57 countries and discuss specific country cases to illustrate this variation. Using data for over 1,700 banks...

"A rapidly growing empirical literature is studying the causes and consequences of bank fragility in contemporary economies. The authors reviews the two basic methodologies adopted in cross-country empirical studies-the signals approach and the multivariate probability model-and their...

"The author describes the presence of financial conglomerates and assesses the extent to which the risks they introduce to the Chilean financial system are mitigated by existing oversight arrangements (and at what cost). In particular, he questions whether the current silo-based supervisory...

"Powell, Mylenko, Miller, and Majnoni analyze how data in public credit registries can be used both to strengthen bank supervision and to improve the quality of credit analysis by financial institutions. Empirical tests using public credit registry (PCR) data were performed in collaboration with...