We analyze factors driving persistently higher financial intermediation costs in low-income countries (LICs) relative to emerging market (EMs) country comparators. Using the net interest margin as a proxy for financial intermediation costs at the bank level, we find that within LICs a...

Financial network analysis is used to provide firm level bottom-up holistic visualizations of interconnections of financial obligations in global OTC derivatives markets. This helps to identify Systemically Important Financial Intermediaries (SIFIs), analyse the nature of contagion propagation,...

We study a simple general equilibrium model in which investment in a risky technology is subject to moral hazard and banks can extract market power rents. We show that more bank competition results in lower economy-wide risk, lower bank capital ratios, more efficient production plans and...

This paper studies how financial stress is transmitted from advanced to emerging economies, using a new financial stress index for emerging economies. An episode of financial stress is defined as a period when the financial system's ability to intermediate may be impaired. Previous financial...

Chinese banks generate large profits and have relatively low nonperforming loans. However, good financial performance does not, in itself, guarantee that banks efficiently intermediate the economy's financial resources. This paper first examines how efficient Chinese banks are in financial...

This paper quantifies financial spillovers from global risk factors to banks’ funding costs in Chile. It decomposes Chilean banks’ bond and interbank spreads into domestic and external factors. The results suggest moderate spillovers. On average, global spillovers pushed up bank...

The West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) regional securities market saw increasing activity in the last decade, but still fell short of supplying sufficient long-term financing for growth-enhancing public and private investment projects. In addition to providing an institutional...

This paper investigates the potential relationships between financial structures and economic outcomes. The empirical results that withstand a battery of methods suggest that some financial intermediation structures are likely to be more closely related to positive economic outcomes than others....