Capital markets can improve risk sharing and the efficiency with which capital is allocated to the real economy, boosting economic growth and welfare. However, despite these potential benefits, not all countries have well developed capital markets. Moreover, government-led initiatives to develop...

This paper assesses whether regional cooperation and integration of stock exchanges in eastern and southern Africa could offer a way of overcoming impediments to the exchanges' development. The paper concludes that regional cooperation and, at a later stage, integration, if carried out at the...

Policy-makers have attributed the scale of the credit crisis and its profound impact on money markets (as well as financial sector stability) to the fast rise of securitization and the way it has arguably complicated both the conduct of monetary policy and the effect of interest rate...

Emerging European countries have made large strides in developing their local capital markets since the early-1990s. However, the rate of development has been widely disparate across countries and market segments, underpinned by the varying degrees of progress made in key areas such as...

Capital markets in the East African Community (EAC) face common challenges of low capitalization and liquidity, but to different degrees. EAC member countries have made noticeable progress in developing domestic capital markets through a regional approach, removing constraints on capital...

This paper provides an introduction to the new economics of prudential capital controls in emerging economies. This literature is based on the notion that there are externalities associated with financial crises because individual market participants do not internalize their contribution to...

This paper surveys policy responses in recent years to capital inflows in a diverse group of countries that are represented by the Netherlands at the IMF Executive Board. Based on the findings from cross-country empirical literature, the paper distills some guiding principles for policy...

This paper consolidates previous work on the development of secondary markets for government securities, and focuses on the sequencing of measures necessary for their development. Six main lessons are identified: (i) a commitment to achieving and maintaining a stable macroeconomic environment,...

This paper sets forth some basic principles that could help debt managers in emerging market and other countries to plan and implement sovereign debt buyback and swap operations. It discusses the macroeconomic context in which buybacks and swaps are undertaken, the objectives of buybacks and...

This paper proposes an integrated and risk-based approach to the sequencing and coordination of reforms to develop domestic financial markets. The paper argues that there is a hierarchy of financial markets that reflects the complexity of risks in each market and the interlinkages among markets....