This paper investigates policyholder protection schemes in OECD member countries and selected non-OECD countries. It is selective in its scope: it examines the rationale for a policyholder protection scheme; the relationship between certain design features and moral hazard; the role of a...

This paper brings together the results from new empirical analysis on how – under international capital mobility – financial account structure and structural policies can contribute to financial stability. More specifically, the analysis has identified features of financial accounts and...

Using the 2008-09 global financial crisis, this paper examines the role of different forms of international financial integration for asset price contagion in crisis times. Defining contagion as the transmission of financial market movements beyond the co-movements that would occur in...

This paper examines how structural policies can influence a country's risk of suffering financial turmoil. Using a panel of 184 developed and emerging economies from 1970 to 2009, the empirical analysis examines which structural policies can affect financial stability by either shaping the...

Money remitted by international migrants is a major source of income for many countries around the world, exceeding all international development funds combined. Yet individual migrants and their families are often amongst the most vulnerable people in society, and many face significant barriers...

The EU Single Market remains far from completed: progress in goods and services market integration has stalled, financial markets are still fragmented along national lines and the barriers to labour mobility remain high. Restrictive regulation within countries and regulatory heterogeneity across...

Europe’s economy is finally growing robustly. These positive developments provide an opportunity to renew efforts to meet the long-term challenges facing the European Union (EU). The EU’s record on reducing regional income disparities is mixed and this explains some of citizens’ discontent...

Certain growth-promoting policies can have negative side-effects by increasing the vulnerability of economies to financial crises. Typical examples are greater openness to financial flows or more liberalised financial markets. This paper investigates whether the growth benefits of policy reforms...

Financial intermediaries may increase economic efficiency through intertemporal risk smoothing. However without an adequate regulation, intermediation may fail to do this. This paper studies the effects of a production shock in a closed economy and compares abilities of market-based and...

China is well-placed to avoid the so-called “middle-income trap” and to continue to converge towards the more advanced economies, even though growth is likely to slow from near double-digit rates in the first decade of this millennium to around 7% at the 2020 horizon. However, in order to...