This paper seeks to draw lessons from the IMF’s experience in handling financial crises around the globe over the past ten years that are relevant to the challenges faced by countries in Latin America, especially in the wake of the recent crisis in Argentina. Experience suggests that...

This paper addresses the challenges to prudential supervision in highly dollarized economies, where central banks and supervisors may be constrained in the use of standard money and financial policy tools. The study’s conclusions are the basis of an ongoing policy dialogue with IMF member...

The paper examines the evolution of public sector debt levels and structures in 12 emerging market countries around the time of financial crises. In particular, it focuses on whether the debt situation of sovereign borrowers became more vulnerable in the aftermath of crises. The principal...

This study looks at the first two years of the banking crisis that erupted in Indonesia in late 1997. It finds that the banking sector was weak at the outset, and that governance problems intensified the crisis and seriously delayed its resolution. Although a strategy was put in place over the...

This paper empirically analyzes the effects of a banking crisis on bank credit to the private sector for a panel of developing, developed, and transition economies for the period 1970-1998. The model illustrates how the behavior of the bank credit function changes during a banking crisis,...

The simple answer to both questions in the title of this paper is: No. We concentrate on the three main risk elements that contributed to the banking system’s difficulties during the crisis: increasing dollarization of the balance sheet, expanding exposure to the government, and, eventually,...

An increasing number of countries - including in Latin America - are reforming their financial stability frameworks in the aftermath of the financial crisis, in order to establish a stronger macroprudential policy function. This paper analyzes existing arrangements for financial stability in...

Financial sector liberalization was high on the agenda of policymakers during the last quarter of the twentieth century. But there were significant differences in the pace and scale of reform. This pamphlet examines the factors triggering-or impeding and even reversing-financial reform in 35...

This note explores the costs and benefits of different policy options to reduce the risks associated with credit booms, drawing upon several country experiences and the findings from econometric analysis.