Bangladesh has maintained its robust growth performance. Exports and remittances have been buoyant. Agriculture had bumper harvests. Overall inflation has slowed as decelerating food inflation offset a pickup in non-food inflation. Monetary expansion has been short of target as private sector...

This is a companion to the Global Economic Prospects 2010. Most commodity prices reached historical highs in mid-2008, giving rise to the longest and broadest commodity boom of the post-WWII period. Apart from strong and sustained economic growth, the boom was fueled by numerous factors...

The Country Opinion Survey in Macedonia assists the World Bank Group (WBG) in gaining a better understanding of how stakeholders in Macedonia perceive the WBG. It provides the WBG with systematic feedback from national and local governments, multilateral and bilateral agencies, media, academia,...

This report presents an analysis conducted by the World Bank to assess macro-fiscal impacts of earthquakes and floods in European Union (EU) Member States (MS), analyze the financial instruments in place to manage this risk and identify any associated funding gaps. The analysis is underpinned by...

This note examines the implications of digital innovation for market structure and attendant policies, including financial and competition regulation. There have been several surveys of regulatory responses. This note takes a step back, to look at what the economic theory of banking and...

Following a decade of conflicts, Western Balkan countries accomplished robust economic growth in the 2000s. This growth pattern was domestic demand driven and externally financed, hence was hampered significantly by the global financial crisis and subsequent euro area debt crisis. Despite modest...

This Note provides guidance to securities markets regulators in emerging market economies (EMEs) about key regulatory issues that could affect the issuance of debt instruments for infrastructure financing over which they have some control. The Note focuses on three areas (placement regime,...

This Policy Note focuses on distribution channels, the role they play in product diversification and costs, and how regulation can promote competition in mutual funds (MFs) distribution. In many emerging market economics (EMEs) where both the capital markets and the MFs have reached certain...

Poland's capital markets can play a crucial supporting role to the ongoing economic development and efficient allocation of credit. Capital markets will become increasingly important to meet the long-term funding needs of strategic sectors, including large, medium and small entities. Expansion...

Capital markets in Serbia are shallow and relatively underdeveloped. The only market segment that functions comparatively well is the government bond market. The contribution of capital markets to financing the economy is limited. The private sector is not making use of non-government bond...