The recent financial crisis has forced a rethink of banking regulation and supervision and the role of financial innovation. This paper develops a model where prudent banks may signal their type through high capital ratios. Capital regulation may ensure separation in equilibrium, but deposit...

Revitalizing the Jamaican Economy: Policies for Sustained Growth aims to improve our understanding of the constraints to social and economic development in Jamaica. It also proposes practical solutions to overcome some of those problems. This book is a collection of studies commissioned by the...

This study assesses macroeconomic volatility in Costa Rica, based largely on politically weak governments' inability or unwillingness to effect key reforms. Notable problems include volatility-prone fiscal and monetary policy, structurally weak public finances due to large domestic debts and...

This paper analyzes capital inflow surges in emerging economies from 1980 to 2005. Estimated probit models are used, which discriminate well between surges associated with banking crises or recessions, and those surges that end without such events. The results indicate that the composition of...

Money is used as a store of value, a medium of exchange and a unit of account. Most recent analyses of currency choice in an international setting have focused on the denomination of reservesthe store of value role. However, public data are only aggregate and exclude several countries. This...

This paper develops a model featuring both a macroeconomic and a financial stability objective that speaks to the interaction between monetary and macroprudential policies. First, we find that interest rate rigidities in a monopolistic banking system have an asymmetric impact on financial...

Countercyclical country interest rates have been shown to be both a distinctive characteristic and an important driving force of business cycles in emerging market economies. In order to account for this, most business cycle models of emerging market economies have relied on ad hoc and exogenous...

Improved microfinance strategies in Peru have increased credit access for microentrepreneurs. To establish effective national credit reporting systems elsewhere in the region, ensured universal reporting cooperation, reliable identification, privacy and consumer protection are needed.

As the MFI industry matures, the necessity of dealing with foreign exchange risk becomes more urgent. Identifying possible solutions to foreign currency risk before they become a critical priority will give MFIs more options in the future.