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...

A rapidly growing empirical literature is studying the causes and consequences of bank fragility in present-day economies. The paper reviews the two basic methodologies adopted in cross-country empirical studies-the signals approach and the multivariate probability model-and their application to...

This paper provides a framework to assess the benefits and costs of intervening in a banking crisis. Intervention involves liquidity support and resolution actions. Principal benefits of intervention include avoiding panic and eliminating the economic costs of distorted incentives. Principal...

Despite stops, gaps, and reversals, financial reforms advanced worldwide in the last quarter century. Using a new index of financial liberalization, we conclude that influential events shook the status quo, inducing both reforms and reversals, while learning, more so than ideology and country...

Volatility in Italian sovereign spreads has increased since mid-2011. This paper finds that news on the euro area debt crisis and country specific events were important drivers of sovereign spreads. Movements in sovereign spreads affect CDS spreads and bond yields of Italian banks, and are...

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...

The 2009 Article IV Consultation highlights that the near-term outlook for Belgium is challenging, with real GDP expected to drop by about 3 percent in 2009 and a gradual recovery projected for 2010. The unemployment rate will continue to rise in 2010, and inflation pressures are expected to...

This Selected Issues paper summarizes estimates of the gap between current housing prices and their equilibrium levels in the United States. It examines short-term dynamics of price adjustment. Reflecting uncertainties about how to analyze underlying housing price trends, two approaches are used...

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.

Recoveries that occur in the absence of credit growth are often dubbed miracles and named after mythical creatures. Yet these are not rare animals, and are not always miracles. About one out of five recoveries is "creditless", and average growth during these episodes is about a third lower than...