Financial sector development is a critical area of effective social protection policy. A well-regulated financial sector can complement government efforts to keep households from falling into poverty - by supplying the instruments needed to pool risks, or to self-insure against losses because of...

This paper examines how market-based risk financing instruments could enable asset-poor but productive farmers exposed to production shocks to engage in riskier but higher-return agricultural activities. The financing of these exogenous shocks is addressed in a conceptual framework based on an...

As governments grow richer, the share of their GDP devoted to public spending rises. Public spending in the United States was 7.5 percent of GDP in 1913. It is 33 percent today. Although industrial countries spend twice as much as developing countries, government spending on goods and services...

This paper points out that Governments are facing increasing fiscal risks and uncertainties. Two of the reasons for this situation are: first, the international integration of financial markets, which has meant greater volumes and volatility of cross-border flows of private capital; and, second,...

Buckley, Karaguishiyeva,Van Order, and Vecvagare analyze the structure of approaches to mortgage credit risk that are now being used in a number of OECD and transition economies. The authors'basic approach is to show how option pricing models can help measure and evaluate the risks of various...

Poor households in rural areas are particularly vulnerable to risks that reduce incomes and increase expenditures. Most past research has focused on risk-coping strategies for the rural poor, specially on micro-level and household actions. These are risks that can been shared within a community...

In the 1980s and 1990s several countries experienced banking crises. The authors try to identify features of the economic environment that tend to breed problems in the banking sector. They do so by economically estimating the probability of a systemic crisis, applying a multivariate logic model...

Herders in Mongolia have suffered tremendous losses in recent dzud (winter disasters), with livestock mortality rates of over 50 percent in some locales. This study examines the feasibility of offering insurance to compensate for animal deaths. Such an undertaking is challenging in any country....

The authors argue that short termism, dollarization, and the use of foreign jurisdictions are endogenous ways of coping with systemic risks prevalent in emerging markets. They represent a symptom at least as much as a problem. These coping mechanisms are jointly determined and the choice of one...

The author explains how differences in the informational and contracting environments of countries affect the optimal design of their financial safety nets and their optimal strategies for managing financial crises. He explains how to design and operate safety nets at minimum cost to taxpayers...