Which public policies and ownership structures enhance the governance of banks? The authors construct a new database on the ownership of banks internationally and then assess the ramifications of ownership, shareholder protection laws, and supervisory and regulatory policies on bank valuations....

This paper introduces the updated and expanded version of the Financial Development and Structure Database and presents recent trends in structure and development of financial institutions and markets across countries. The authors add indicators on banking structure and financial globalization....

When prices spike in international grain markets, national governments often reduce the extent to which that spike affects their domestic food markets. Those actions exacerbate the price spike and international welfare transfer associated with the terms of trade change. Several recent analyses...

This paper introduces the Global Financial Development Database, an extensive dataset of financial system characteristics for 205 economies from 1960 to 2010. The database includes measures of (a) size of financial institutions and markets (financial depth), (b) degree to which individuals can...

This paper provides the first comprehensive documentation of how firms use domestic and international corporate bond markets. Debt issues in domestic and international markets have different characteristics, not explained by differences across firms or countries. International issues tend to be...

This paper reassesses what works in banking regulation based on the new World Bank survey (Survey IV) of bank regulation and supervision around world. The paper briefly presents new and official survey information on bank regulations in more than 125 countries, makes comparisons with earlier...

The agricultural and food sector is an ideal case for investigating the political economy of public policies. Many of the policy developments in this sector since the 1950s have been sudden and transformational, while others have been gradual but persistent. This paper reviews and synthesizes...

The claim by global trade modelers that the potential contribution to global economic welfare of removing agricultural subsidies is less than one-tenth of that from removing agricultural tariffs puzzles many observers. To help explain that result, the authors first compare the OECD and...

Most of the world's poorest people depend on farming for their livelihood. Earnings from farming in low-income countries are depressed partly due to a pro-urban bias in own-country policies, and partly because richer countries (including some developing countries) favor their farmers with import...

The authors examine whether financial development boosts the growth of small firms more than large firms and hence provides information on the mechanisms through which financial development fosters aggregate economic growth. They define an industry's technological firm size as the firm size...