This paper examines the state of reverse mortgage markets in selected countries around the world and considers the potential benefits and risks of these products from a financial inclusion and economic benefit standpoint. Despite potentially increasing demand from aging societies -- combined...

This paper examines the employment growth of Indian districts from 2000 to 2010 in the manufacturing and services sectors. Specialization and diversity metrics that combine industries in both sectors are calculated and related to subsequent job growth. The analysis finds robust and consistent...

Traditionally, governments seek to mobilize tax revenues by expanding their enforcement of existing tax regimes and facilitating tax payments. However, enforcement and facilitation can be costly and produce diminishing marginal returns if citizens are unwilling to pay their taxes. This paper...

Industry and financial profiles of MENA firms may underpin the observation that MENA country exports are below potential and skewed toward low value-added goods that are unable to spur rapid job creation and inclusive growth. To assess this link, the paper combines analysis highlighting external...

The paper uses the latest 2011 round of the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey for the Russian Federation, which for the first time was designed to be representative of Russian regions. The paper takes a closer look at regional-level factors influencing the business...

This paper finds that shareholder-friendly corporate governance is positively associated with bank insolvency risk, as proxied by the Z-score and the Merton's distance to default measure, for an international sample of banks over the 2004-08 period. Banks are special in that "good" corporate...

This paper reviews the published work on the governance of regulatory authorities in order to identify the basic governance standards that apply and some of the factors that affect the implementation of good governance. There are four pillars of good regulatory governance: independence,...

This paper examines how corporate governance and executive compensation affected bank capitalization strategies for an international sample of banks in 2003-2011. "Good" corporate governance, which favors shareholder interests, is found to give rise to lower bank capitalization. Boards of...