This paper studies the effect of bank ownership on product innovation by borrowing firms, highlighting the role of the state, foreign, and combined foreign-state bank ownership. It uses Enterprise Survey data for more than 22,000 firms in 49 countries from 2016 to 2020, linked to Fitchconnect...

The Russian banking sector includes approximately 1,000 banks, but is it competitive? This paper analyzes bank competition in Russia during 2002-2008. The authors examine indicators of concentration and contestability, and compute non-structural measures of competition. They compare competition...

Drawing on the lessons from the global financial crisis and especially from its impact on the banking systems of Eastern Europe, the paper proposes a new practical approach to macroprudential stress testing. The proposed approach incorporates: (i) macroeconomic stress scenarios generated from...