This chapter provides a background on financial inclusion and examines the progress and trends across different indicators of financial inclusion and different macro and income regions. The data show positive growth in different indicators of financial inclusion over recent years; however, the...

The opacity of the banking business has been identified as a main source of stock crash risk. Level 3 financial instruments are particularly opaque products, as their fair value is neither directly available nor measurable using market prices. Focusing on Europe, we find robust evidence that L3...