Recently, the export performance of France relative to its own past and relative to a major trading partner, Germany, deteriorated. That deterioration seems related to the geographical destination and product composition of trend exports. Faced with an increase in unit labor costs or in its...

We bring to bear a hand-collected dataset of executive turnovers in U.S. banks to test the efficacy of market discipline in a 'laboratory setting' by analyzing banks that are less likely to be subject to government support. Specifically, we focus on a new face of market discipline: stakeholders'...

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...

During the first half of 2008, Sri Lanka witnessed significantly higher inflation than most other emerging Asian countries. Inflation has since declined amid declining world commodity prices and tight monetary policy. Given the sensitivity to global commodity prices, a core inflation measure...