The staff report for the Second Review Under the Three-Year Arrangement Under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility focuses on the Republic of Armenia’s economic environment and policy discussion. Financial sector reforms will focus on improving corporate governance, strengthening...

This paper surveys the foreign exchange markets, money and secondary government security markets, and stock exchanges in 107 smaller economy countries. The underdevelopment of these markets impedes risk transfer, monetary policy, corporate financing, and the capacity to absorb capital inflows....

Uruguay has experienced a remarkable recovery since the 2002 crisis, supported by sound policies and favorable external conditions. With the framework put in place in 2002, Uruguay abandoned an exchange rate peg in favor of a free float, adoped a monetary regime initially based on money targets,...

Does the bank lending channel of monetary transmission work in Turkey? Using the May- June 2006 financial turbulence as an exogenous shock that prompted a significant tightening of monetary policy, this paper examines the loan supply response of Turkey's banks, depending on their balance sheet...

This paper examines the pattern of excess liquidity in sub-Saharan Africa and its consequences for the effectiveness of monetary policy. The paper argues that understanding the consequences of excess liquidity requires quantifying the extent to which commercial bank holdings of excess liquidity...

We assess the extent to which loan losses affect banks’ provision of credit to companies and households and examine how feedback from losses to a reduction in credit is affected by the monetary policy stance. Using a unique cross-country dataset of more than 600 banks from 32 countries, we...

The period following the 2000-01 crisis was marked by a successful disinflation program sustained through inflation targeting and fiscal discipline in Turkey. This paper studies the impact of monetary and fiscal policies on credit growth during this period. Using quarterly bank-level data...

If monetary policy is to aim also at financial stability, how would it change? To analyze this question, this paper develops a general-form framework. Financial stability objectives are shown to make monetary policy more aggressive: in reaction to negative shocks, cuts are deeper but...

This paper contributes to the current debate on what role financial stability considerations should play in monetary policy decision and how best to integrate macro-prudential and monetary policy frameworks. The paper broadly supports the view that monetary policy easing induces greater...

I propose a new approach to identifying exogenous monetary policy shocks in low-income countries with capital account restrictions. In the case of Mauritania, a domestic repatriation requirement is the key institutional characteristic that allows me to establish exogeneity. Unlike in advanced...