An international cooperative effort has been focused on the need to reduce financial fragility and systemic risks in global financial markets. Work is proceeding in three different areas: enhancing financial market transparency, improving the international financial architecture, and...

Over the past decades, finance theory has contributed significantly to understanding banks and identifying what qualifies them to be special financial intermediaries. Historically, banks have had a comparative advantage in certain functions - such as providing liquidity and payment services and...

Over the past 70 years, a proposal to narrow the scope of banks has emerged more and more frequently in financial debates and research. Narrow banking would prevent deposit-issuing banks from lending to the private sector and restrict nonbank intermediaries from funding investments with demand...

This study investigates the relationship between production efficiency in financial intermediation and financial system size. The study predicts and tests for the existence of systemic scale economies (SSEs), whereby value-maximizing intermediaries operating in large systems are expected to have...

This study presents a theory of financial infrastructure - or the set of rules, institutions, and systems within which agents carry out financial transactions. It investigates the effects of financial infrastructure development on financial architecture and real capital accumulation, taking into...

This study lays the foundations of the 'Accounting View' of money. Using international accounting principles, the study argues that state and central bank monies are not debt, and that in fractional reserve regimes only a share of commercial bank money can be regarded as debt. The study...