Recent developments have increased questions about vulnerabilities in Central and Eastern European Countries (CEE) that are experiencing credit booms. This paper analyzes the role of foreign-owned banks in these credit booms. The results show that the CEE countries depend on foreign banks, and...

We study a banking model in which banks invest in a riskless asset and compete in both deposit and risky loan markets. The model predicts that as competition increases, both loans and assets increase; however, the effect on the loans-to-assets ratio is ambiguous. Similarly, as competition...

Many empirical studies of banking crises have employed "banking crisis" (BC) indicators constructedusing primarily information on government actions undertaken in response to bank distress. Weformulate a simple theoretical model of a banking industry which we use to identify and...

This Selected Issues paper examines developments in Estonia’s expanding net external obligations, as well as in domestic income flows and balance sheets. The paper discusses external current account and net international investment positions. Domestic investment and saving and balance...

The paper analyzes the determinants of banking spreads in Barbados, with a view to identifying the role of the monetary policy regime in explaining high spreads. The paper finds that interest rate spreads for Barbados are higher than would be suggested by its macroeconomic performance. Banking...

Dollarization in financial intermediation has exhibited a widely diverse pattern across countries. Empirical work relating it to macroeconomic variables has had only limited success in explaining the phenomenon. This paper presents a two-currency banking model to show that deposit and loan...

We use data for more than 2,600 European banks to test whether increased competition causes banks to hold higher capital ratios. Employing panel data techniques, and distinguishing between the competitive conduct of small and large banks, we show that banks tend to hold higher capital ratios...

This paper reviews monetary transmission mechanisms in low-income countries (LICs) to identify aspects of the channels that may operate differently in LICs relative to advanced and emerging economies. Given the weak institutional frameworks, reduced role of securities markets, imperfect...

This study examines the effect of financial-sector reform on bank performance in selected Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries in the period 1994 -2008. We evaluate bank efficiency in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Lebanon and Tunisia by means of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and we...