Over the four decades since the Four Modernizations program began in 1978, China has matured from a capital-starved, mono-bank-centric financial system to a capital-rich system with great variety of financial intermediation. This chapter plays off the double meaning of its title: first, it...

While northeastern Asian economies have grown at a stellar rate over the past 4 decades, during the same period, bank officials and financial market participants have been charged with corruption, nepotism, and government meddling and have incurred high levels of non-performing loans. The close...