This technical note discusses the lessons learned from the financial crisis in Russia in 2008. The note summarizes key findings and recommendations, and analyzes the institutional framework and coordination arrangements for systemic risk monitoring and crisis management. It also covers crisis...

This paper seeks to draw lessons from the IMF’s experience in handling financial crises around the globe over the past ten years that are relevant to the challenges faced by countries in Latin America, especially in the wake of the recent crisis in Argentina. Experience suggests that...

This study examines how depositors choose among different banks and over time in Colombia, focusing on whether they discipline bank behavior. By controlling for a more comprehensive set of risk/return factors, the study improves upon conventional market discipline tests. Panel data estimations...

This paper provides a framework to assess the benefits and costs of intervening in a banking crisis. Intervention involves liquidity support and resolution actions. Principal benefits of intervention include avoiding panic and eliminating the economic costs of distorted incentives. Principal...

This paper evaluates empirically four types of cost that may result from an international sovereign default: reputational costs, international trade exclusion costs, costs to the domestic economy through the financial system, and political costs to the authorities. It finds that the economic...

The ongoing global financial crisis is rooted in a combination of factors common to previous financial crises and some new factors. The crisis has brought to light a number of deficiencies in financial regulation and architecture, particularly in the treatment of systemically important financial...

Recent financial sector crises and their resolution have raised new issues and provided additional experiences to draw on in the future. Banking sector problems in Russia, Turkey, and a few Latin American countries occurred within the context of highly dollarized economies, high levels of...

The financial turmoil of the late 1990s prompted a broad search for tools and techniques for detecting and preventing financial crises, and more recent episodes of instability have high lighted the importance of continuous monitoring of financial systems as a tool for preventing crises. This...

Rapid growth of Islamic banking in developing countries is accompanied with claims about its relative resilience to financial crises as compared to conventional banking. However, little empirical evidence is available to support such claims. Using data from Pakistan, where Islamic and...

The staff report for El Salvador’s request for a Stand-By Arrangement is examined. Fiscal consolidation led to a reduction in the public debt-to-GDP ratio, and the country has experienced the highest growth rates in a decade. Real GDP growth is projected to slow to 3.2 percent in 2008,...