What can be done to rapidly and effectively contain systemic risks, restore the solvency and profitability of financial institutions, minimize the impact of financial sector distress on the economy and limit the fiscal costs of a crisis? What set of policies contribute to a rapid and successful...

Group-based lending programs for the poor have become a focus of attention in the development community over the last several years. To date, there has been no comprehensive investigation of their impact on household behavior that has been sufficiently attentive to issues of endogeneity and...

Diversification of the financial sector has been one of the central features of China's recent and rapid economic growth. This book traces the development of China's Trust and Investment Companies (TICs), the most numerous non-bank financial institutions to emerge in China, and their link to the...

The decline in commodity prices that began with metals and agriculture four years ago—joined by crude oil in mid-2014—continued in 2015Q1 (Figure 1). Energy, metals, and agricultural prices were down 28, 11, and 5 percent, respectively, from the previous quarter. Increasing supplies, bumper...

Liberia had an estimated 4.3 million hectares of forests in 2011, comprising approximately 50 percent of Liberia’s landmass. These forests support very high levels of biodiversity, provide a wide range of ecosystem services (for example, bush meat, medicines, construction materials, and...