The latest advancement in financial technology has posed unprecedented challenges for incumbent banks. This paper analyzes the implications of these challenges on bank competitveness, and explores the factors that could support digital advancement in banks. The analysis shows that the...

This paper revisits the stabilization role of public banks and analyzes whether weak public finances may hinder this role. During the global financial crisis (GFC), public banks were widely used to counter the private credit crunch and prop up the economy. Using cross-country bank-level data for...

Capital market development in Brazil is a key policy issue going forward to foster savings, investment and absorptive capacity in a context of prospects for sizable capital flows in the medium term. During the last decade, Brazil has achieved substantial progress in capital market development....

Combining balance sheet data on 900,000 firms from 48 countries with information on the adoption of macroprudential policies during 2003-2011, we find that these policies are associated with lower credit growth. These effects are especially significant for micro, small and medium enterprises...

Financial regulation is often framed as a question of economic efficiency. This paper, by contrast, puts the distributive implications of financial regulation center stage. We develop a model in which the financial sector benefits from risk-taking by earning greater expected returns. However,...

The paper tests the effectiveness of financial soundness indicators (FSIs) as harbingers of banking crises, using multivariate logit models to see whether FSIs, broad macroeconomic indicators, and institutional indicators can indeed predict crisis occurrences. The analysis draws upon a data set...

This paper studies the transmission of bank capital shocks to loan supply in Indonesia. A series of theoretically founded dynamic panel data models are estimated and find nonlinear effects of capital on loan growth: the response of weaker banks to changes in their capital positions is larger...

European housing markets are at a turning point as the cost-of-living crisis has eroded real incomes and the surge in interest rates has made borrowers more vulnerable to financial distress. This paper aims to (i) shed light on the risks in European housing markets, (ii) quantify household...

Housing market developments are in the spotlight in Europe. Over-stretched valuations amid tightening financial conditions and a cost-of-living crisis have increased risks of a sustained downturn and exposed challenging trade-offs for macroprudential policy between ensuring financial system...

This paper studies whether bank ownership influenced lending behavior during the COVID-19 shock. It finds that, similar to previous episodes of financial distress, foreign banks appear to have played a shock-transmitting role, as there was a sharp slowdown in lending by foreign banks’...