Financial crises can happen for a variety of reasons: (a) nobody really understands what is going on (the collective cognition paradigm); (b) some understand better than others and take advantage of their knowledge (the asymmetric information paradigm); (c) everybody understands, but crises are...

The integration of micro-prudential oversight with the macro-approach to financial stability -- long in the making -- raises several issues of coordination of regulatory responsibilities. This paper argues that a decomposition of the covariance of asset returns into an endogenous volatility...

Risk and its consequences pose a formidable threat to poverty reduction efforts. This study reviews a plethora of community-based risk management arrangements across the developing world. These types of arrangements are garnering greater interest in light of the growing recognition of the...

This paper solves and estimates a stochastic model of optimal inter-temporal behavior to assess how changes in the design of the unemployment benefits and pension systems in Brazil could affect savings rates, the share of time that individuals spend outside of the formal sector, and retirement...

This paper summarizes the state of the portfolio of World Bank lending activities and analytic work on social safety nets between FY2002-2007. It presents a description of the methodology used for compiling the inventories and analyses by region, type of intervention involved, sector board, and...

Financial crises happen when: (i) nobody really understands what is going on (the collective cognition paradigm); (ii) some understand better and take advantage (the asymmetric information paradigm); (iii) everybody understands but crises are a natural part of the financial landscape (the market...

According to World Bank policy, countries remain eligible to borrow from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development until they are able to sustain long-term development without further recourse to Bank financing. Graduation from the Bank is not an automatic consequence of reaching...

Does related lending have positive or negative effects on the development of banking systems? This paper analyzes a unique cross-country data set covering 74 countries from 1990 to 2007, and finds that related lending, on average, does not have any effect on the growth of credit. The authors do...

This paper builds on previous studies to uncover evidence suggesting that cyclical fluctuations in returns to schooling are determined by fluctuations in foreign demand, which tend to be positively correlated with returns to schooling. The effect of export fluctuations (driven by changes in...

Creditor-friendly laws are generally associated with more credit to the private sector and deeper financial markets. But laws mean little if they are not upheld in the courts. The authors hypothesize that the effectiveness of creditor rights is strongly linked to the efficiency of contract...