Using bank data for 80 countries for 1988-95, the authors show that differences in interest margins and bank profitability reflect various determinants: bank characteristics, macroeconomic conditions, explicit and implicit bank taxes, regulation of deposit insurance, general financial structure,...

Payment systems include all the paper (including cash) and electronic systems a country uses to exchange financial value to discharge obligations. Financial markets rely on promptness and certainty of payment and settlement for borrowing and investing. Consumers want convenience, choice (of...

Weaknesses in the corporate sector have increasingly been cited as important factors in financial crises in both emerging markets and industrial countries. Analysts have pointed to weak corporate performance and risky financing patterns as major causes of the East Asian financial crisis. And...

In seeking funding, a firm's main choice is between external and internal financing. And, says the author, the evidence suggests that the stock market plays only a limited role providing finance for both U.S. and Indian firms. The author finds that internal finance plays less of a role for...

The authors show that capital inflows into the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)--inflows that are mainly private, debt-driven, and increasingly supplied by banks on a shortening maturity--are especially vulnerable to reversals. They show that the region's banking systems are...

The literature on safety nets has become technically more precise by drawing on advances in contract theory and optimal governance structure. This paper begins with a treatment of some aspects of the theory. The author's approach draws more on institutional economics, and more precisely on the...

Banking sectors in transition economies have experienced major transformations throughout the 1990s. While some countries have been successful in eliminating underlying distortions and restructuring their financial sectors, in some cases financial sectors remain underdeveloped and the rates of...

Evidence about how choice of regulatory regimes affects the level of shareholder risk for the regulated company has traditionally focused on studies in the United Kingdom and the United States. Broad comparisons of price-cap based regimes (as practiced in the UK) with rate-of-return regulation...

The authors investigate the origins of the East Asian crisis and its contagion, examine the channels of contagion, and discuss policy recommendationsThey make detailed recommendations in the context of nine general lessons learned from the East Asian crisis. 1) Preventing crises and contagion:...

Recent empirical work has shown that financial development is important for economic growth, since well-developed financial markets are more effective at allocating capital to firms with high-value projects. This raises the question of whether firms with high return projects in countries with...