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...

This paper examines the evolving importance of banks and securities markets during the process of economic development. As economies develop, they increase their demand for the services provided by securities markets relative to those provided by banks, such that securities markets become...

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 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 critically reviews the literature on finance and inequality, highlighting substantive gaps in the literature. Finance plays a crucial role in most theories of persistent inequality. Unsurprisingly, therefore, economic theory provides a rich set of predictions concerning both the...

The authors examine the decisions policy-makers in transitional socialist economies must make: how to define the asset liability structure of state owned enterprises and banks as they are privatized. They conclude that the many loans issued by state-owned enterprises under socialism are impeding...

World stock markets are booming. Between 1982 and 1993, stock market capitalization grew from $2 trillion to $10 trillion, an average 15 percent a year. A disproportionate amount of this growth was in emerging stock markets, which rose from 3 percent of world stock markets capitalization to 14...

A vast amount of literature uses cross-country regressions to find empirical links between policy indicators and long-run average growth rates. The authors study whether the conclusions from existing studies are robust or fragile when small changes in the list of independent variables occur....

The authors report cross-country data on commercial bank regulation and ownership in more than 60 countries. They evaluate the links between different regulatory/ownership practices in those countries and both financial sector performance and banking system stability. They document substantial...

This paper documents several new patterns associated with firms issuing securities in foreign markets that motivate the need for and help guide future research. Besides noting that these international capital raisings grew almost four-fold from 1991 to 2005, accounting for 35 percent of all...