High credit growth in Emerging Europe, generally considered a sign of catching-up with the"old"Europe, has begun receiving considerable attention among investors and policymakers alike. Given heightened global risks and the demands under the European Union accession process, the need to better...

Over the past 25 years, India's economy grew at an average real rate of close to 6 percent, with growth rates in recent years accelerating to 9 percent. Yet by 2005-06, the general government debt-to-GDP ratio was 34 percentage points higher than in the 1980s. The authors examine the links...

This paper uses unique bank-by-bank balance sheet and income statement information to investigate the intermediation efficiency in the Nigerian pre-consolidated banking sector during 2000-05. The author analyzes whether the Central Bank of Nigeria's policy of recent banking consolidation can be...

This paper investigates the leading causes of nonperforming loans during the economic and banking crises that affected a large number of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa in the 1990s. Empirical analysis shows a dramatic increase in these loans and extremely high credit risk, with significant...

Although it is widely accepted that financial development is associated with higher growth, the evidence on the channels through which credit affects growth on the micro-level is scant. Using data from a cross section of Bulgarian firms, the authors estimate the impact of access to credit (as...

Using a large panel dataset of Chinese industrial firms, the authors examine the determinants of access to loans from formal financial intermediaries and extension of trade credit. Poorly performing state-owned enterprises were more likely to redistribute credit to firms with less privileged...

Microfinance contracts have proven able to secure high rates of loan repayment in the face of limited liability and information asymmetries, but high repayment rates have not translated easily into profits for most microbanks. Profitability, though, is at the heart of the promise that...

The author assesses the extent to which Chilean firms have access to sufficient and adequate sources of funds. Access to finance has become an important issue for policymakers in Latin America. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs), in particular, complain that their lack of access to adequate...

Using a unique bank-level data set on the Ugandan banking system during 1999-2005, the authors explore the factors behind consistently high interest rate spreads and margins. While foreign banks charge lower interest rate spreads, they do not find a robust and economically significant...

Natural resource abundance can lead to strong economic growth if resource rents are well invested in physical assets and other forms of productive capital. This paper focuses on the case of the resource-abundant economies in Eurasia, which has been less documented in the literature on natural...