Although a millennium ago the Middle East was not an economic laggard, by the 18th century it exhibited clear signs of economic backwardness. The reason for this transformation is that certain components of the region’s legal infrastructure stagnated as their Western counterparts gave way to...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine and illustrate how a relatively young Islamic financial institution has successfully gone international. Despite the fact there are many larger financial institutions in the Arabian Gulf, they either failed to identify the opportunity or were...

This book presents but a few examples of the many Bank-financed productive activities carried out by the people of the region, and pays tribute to the women and men who, in their efforts to succeed, daily renew their hopes for a better future. In addition, the book pays tribute to the...

This study was prepared for the Financial Services and Poverty Reduction research project and was presented at the conference with the same name held at Bank headquarters in September of 2004. It first establishes the considerable welfare cost borne by the region's poor when facing uncovered...

This paper outlines some of the issues that affect small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in three areas: regulation, procurement, and dispute resolution. The work presented herein is part of the Bank's most recent efforts to develop new approaches and instruments to strengthen its role as a...

Several developed and developing countries started to integrate their specialized supervisory institutions into a single entity during the past few years. A debate on the pros and cons of integrated supervision models emerged recently. Issues in favor and against integration have been...

El presente documento presenta algunos de los aspectos más destacados referentes a los efectos del Nuevo acuerdo de capital de Basilea (NACB) sobre los sistemas financieros de América Latina y el Caribe. Se discuten las implicancias de los cambios propuestos sobre los niveles de capital, la...

This paper represents one of the first comparative analyses of experiences of integrated supervision. It discusses how several countries around the world have developed the processes of integrating financial regulation and supervision, and covers numerous relevant technical issues as well as the...

This Strategy (GN-1885-corr) aims to support the competitiveness of Small- and Medium-size Enterprises (SMEs) so that they may contribute to long-term growth and employment. Most countries in the region are undergoing reforms that are opening their economies to greater international competition....