This report reviews loan classification and provisioning practices in a broad sample of countries that differ in size, location and level of financial development. The survey conducted for the report compares the regulatory approaches adopted by industrial and emerging economies, and is intended...

Intro -- TABLE OF CONTENTS -- Cover -- Title -- Foreword -- Abstract -- Acknowledgments -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Regulatory and Supervisory Authority -- 3 Loan Classification -- 4 Classification of Multiple Loans -- 5 Guarantees and Collateral -- 6 Loan Reviews by Banks -- 7 Classification of...

Only recently has the debate on bank capital regulation devoted specific attention to the role that bank loan loss provisions can play as part of a minimum capital regulatory framework. Several national regulators have adopted or are planning to introduce a cyclically adjustable requirement for...

The authors test for emerging economies, the hypothesis - previously verified only for the Group of 10 (G-10) countries - that enforcing bank capital asset requirements, exerts a negative effect on the supply of credit. Their econometric analysis of data on individual banks, suggests three main...

The authors investigate the effect of judicial efficiency on banks'lending spreads for a large cross section of countries. They measure bank interest rate spreads for 106 countries at an aggregate level, and for 32 countries at the level of individual banks. The authors find that-after...

The authors extend the recent literature on the link between financial development and economic volatility by focusing on the channels through which the development of financial intermediaries affects economic volatility. Their theoretical model predicts that well-developed financial...

The early start of the process of bank restructuring and privatization in Hungary provides a longer and richer amount of evidence than that available for any other transition economy. The authors analyze the dynamics of bank restructuring in Hungary with a focus on the role played by foreign...

Using historical data on sovereign and individual borrowers, the authors assess the potential impact on non-high-income countries of linking capital asset requirements for banks to private sector ratings, as the Basel committee has proposed. They show that linking bank's capital asset...

The authors try to identify and evaluate the public policy implications of financial crises. In this model, financial contagion can be driven by a combination of fundamentals and by self-fulfilling market expectations. The model allows the authors to identify different notions of contagion,...