What major insights have emerged from development economics in the past decade, and how do they matter for the World Bank? This challenging question was recently posed by World Bank Group President David Malpass to the staff of the Development Research Group. This paper assembles a set of 13...

This paper presents recent trends in government and foreign bank ownership across countries and summarizes the evidence regarding the implications of bank ownership structure for bank performance and competition, financial stability, and access to finance. The evidence reviewed suggests that...