The paper has three objectives. After a general introduction to some of the concepts and basic techniques of stress testing, the paper gives an overview of some of the conceptual issues involved in evaluating risks at the aggregated level of financial systems. Second, this study provides a basic...

Loan review is a process routinely used by banks to assess the current value of loan portfolios. Provisioning is a technique to translate loan review results into the balance sheet. It allows for ongoing valuation of loans. Both are core elements of credit risk management and important to...

The volume of foreign aid has increased during the last four decades, albeit with interruptions in certain years. Over time, the major recipients have changed: while the share of aid to Asia has diminished since the 1980s, that destined for sub-Saharan Africa has grown. There is some evidence...

Central bank collateral policies came under pressure with the 2007-08 financial market crisis. This paper addresses the rationale for and constraints in taking collateral, and recent practices in different collateral frameworks. It then considers the risks of adverse selection. The paper...

We estimate ex post returns to emerging market debt by combining secondary-market prices with observed flows based on World Bank data. From 1970-2000, returns averaged 9 percent per annum, about the same as returns on a ten-year U.S. treasury bond. This reflects the combined effect of the 1980s...

This paper presents a theoretical framework for analyzing pricing structures in debit card schemes featuring cardholders, retailers, their respective banks, and a network routing switch. The network routing switch controls the electronic debit card network and is jointly owned by the banks. In...

This paper finds optimal fiscal rule parameter values and measures the effects of imposing fiscal rules using a default model calibrated to an economy that in the absence of a fiscal rule pays a significant sovereign default premium. The paper also studies the case in which the government...