This paper reports the main findings of a pilot project launched in July 2014 by the IMF's Statistics Department to test augmenting the IMF's financial soundness indicators (FSIs) with concentration and distribution measures (CDMs) to capture tail risks, concentrations, variations in...

This paper presents an overview of exposures in the balance sheets of central banks, banks, and other depository institutions during the past decade, with emphasis on asset growth and currency composition. It exploits the IMF's SRF-based monetary data to show: (i) there was a widely observed...

The paper analyzes the efficiency and profitability of Japanese banks from 2000-06. It uses a non-parametric approach, the data envelopment analysis (DEA) to analyze banks'' cost and revenue efficiency. The results show that the performance of Japanese banks has steadily improved since 2001, but...

This paper analyzes factors that determine recent economic growth in the low-income countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States.2 The main findings are as follows: (1) productivity gains in export-oriented sectors and expansion of exports may have become the main sources of growth in...

The paper estimates a behavioral equilibrium exchange rate model for Ghana. Regression results show that most of the REER''s long-run behavior can be explained by real GDP growth, real interest rate differentials (both relative to trading-partner countries), and the real world prices of Ghana''s...

Many empirical studies of banking crises have employed ""banking crisis"" (BC) indicators constructedusing primarily information on government actions undertaken in response to bank distress. Weformulate a simple theoretical model of a banking industry which we use to identify and...

Contingent credit lines (CCLs) are widely used in bank lending and also play an important role in the functioning of short-term capital markets. Yet, their pricing and hedging has not received much attention in the finance literature. Using a financial engineering approach, the paper analyzes...