This paper surveys studies of the importance of Central Asian small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME) in the economy and their experience during the Russian financial crisis. It also uses survey data from the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development's Business...

Reform of financial regulation is a priority on the international agenda. At the call of the Group of Twenty Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors (G-20), a number of new international standards have been issued, most notably Basel III. As a member of the G-20, the Financial Stability...

After analyzing the different reasons why the financial system and also the regulatory framework induced procyclicality, this paper reviews the experiences of three countries which have introduced dynamic provisioning as a regulatory tool to limit procyclicality. The case of Spain - the country...

In this paper we assess the information content of seven widely cited early indicators for the euro area with respect to forecasting area-wide industrial production. To this end, we use various tests that are designed to compare competing forecast models. In addition to the standard...

Towards the end of 2009, the world economy was recovering from its deepest recession since the end of World War II. Most countries around the world took resort to fiscal policy in order to foster this recovery. In this paper, we first discuss the pros and cons of discretionary fiscal policy from...