This study was prepared for the Financial Services and Poverty Reduction research project and was presented at the conference with the same name held at Bank headquarters in September of 2004. It first establishes the considerable welfare cost borne by the region's poor when facing uncovered...

This paper assesses the impact of the Liquidity Program for Growth Sustainability (LPGS) on Latin America and the Caribbean, instrumented by the IDB to confront the regional spillovers of the subprime crisis. This emergency liquidity line was set up to boost productive loans of commercial banks,...

The purpose of this paper, the fourth chapter in a series of discussion papers on private sector development, is to examine issues that are central to financial market development in the Caribbean region. This report identifies factors that are required for financial markets to function...

This paper represents one of the first comparative analyses of experiences of integrated supervision. It discusses how several countries around the world have developed the processes of integrating financial regulation and supervision, and covers numerous relevant technical issues as well as the...

This study analyses the opportunities and challenges presented by agricultural insurance instruments in the deepening of financial services in rural areas in Mesoamerica. It outlines a public policy framework to guide the decision-making process. It concludes that, in order to support the...

The purpose of this paper is to provide Bank staff interested in agricultural yield insurance market development, public officials responsible for financial market policy formulation and supervision, and insurance industry practitioners in Latin America and the Caribbean with a basic primer on...

This paper seeks to provide an overview of the current situation in rural financial markets in the region since the onset of widespread financial liberalization earlier in the decade. It also presents a conceptual framework that explains why these markets do not work well and, in particular, why...

This publication aims to help donors, creditors and investors evaluate the performance, condition and risk of individual microfinance institutions in Latin America and the Caribbean, in hopes of strengthening the microfinance industry and building the microenterprise sector. It provides concrete...

The purpose of this paper is fourfold. First, it seeks to highlight the general characteristics of the microenterprise sector and the microfinance industry in the Anglophone Caribbean. Second, it will examine the main factors that help explain the differences in the development of sustainable...

This paper investigates the causal relationship between financial development and economic growth in Libya during the period 1970–2010. The empirical results vary with estimation methodology and model specification, but indicate the lack of long-run relationship between financial...