The paper investigates the economic effects of major product market reforms in some of the historically most protected non-manufacturing industries. It relies on a unique mapping between new annual data on reform shocks and sector-level outcomes for five network industries (electricity and gas,...

This paper describes a new database of major labor and product market reforms covering 26advanced economies over the period 1970-2013. The focus is on large changes in product marketregulation in seven individual network industries, employment protection legislation for regularand temporary...

Policymakers' uneasiness about granting independence to financial sector regulators stems to a large extent from the lack of familiarity with, and elusiveness of, the concept of accountability. This paper gives operational content to accountability and argues that it is possible to do so in a...

The recent financial crisis has led to a reexamination of policies for macroeconomic and financial stability. Part of the current debate involves the adoption of a macroprudential approach to financial regulation, with an aim toward mitigating boom-bust patterns and systemic risks in financial...

Credit rating agencies face a difficult trade-off between delivering both accurate and stable ratings. In particular, its users have consistently expressed a preference for rating stability, driven by the transactions costs induced by trading when ratings change frequently. Rating agencies...

The paper finds that, given New Zealand's conservative approach in implementing the Basel II framework, New Zealand banks' headline capital ratios underestimate their capital strength. A comparison with Canadian, UK and Australian banks highlights the impact of New Zealand's more conservative...

Assessing when credit is excessive is important to understand macro-financial vulnerabilities and guide macroprudential policy. The Basel Credit Gap (BCG) - the deviation of the credit-to-GDP ratio from its long-term trend estimated with a one-sided Hodrick-Prescott (HP) filter - is the...

The structure of the financial system in Indonesia is examined through the analytical lens of the system`s contribution to the growth, stability, and efficiency of the Indonesian economy. The focus is on the banking system and securities markets, which are the primary mechanisms for mobilizing...

Credit is key to support healthy and sustainable economic growth but excess aggregate credit growth can signal the build-up of imbalances and lead to systemic financial crisis. Hence, monitoring the credit cycle is key to identifying vulnerabilities, particularly in emerging markets, which tend...