This paper reassesses what works in banking regulation based on the new World Bank survey (Survey IV) of bank regulation and supervision around world. The paper briefly presents new and official survey information on bank regulations in more than 125 countries, makes comparisons with earlier...

Foreign bank participation has increased steadily across developing countries since the mid-1990s. This paper documents this trend and surveys the existing literature to explore the drivers and consequences of this phenomenon, paying particular attention to the differences observed across...

The paper provides an assessment of the state of financial inclusion in the MENA region, and identifies constraints, opportunities, and priorities for significantly improving access to finance. Practical recommendations for improving financial inclusion are outlined. Firstly, governments could...

Over the last three decades, China's product, labor, and capital markets have become gradually more integrated within its borders, although integration has been significantly slower for capital markets. There remains a significant urban-rural divide, and Chinese cities tend to be under-sized by...

Mobile banking is growing at a remarkable speed around the world. In the process it is creating considerable uncertainty about the appropriate regulatory response to this newly emerging service. This paper sets out a framework for considering the design of regulation of mobile banking. Since it...

This paper combines firm-level data from 89 countries with updated country-level data on financial structure, and uses two estimation approaches. It finds that in low-income countries, labor growth is swifter in countries with a higher level of private credit/gross domestic product; the positive...

Although there has been research looking at the relationship between the structure of the financial system and economic growth, much less work has dealt with the importance of bank-based versus market-based financial systems for poverty and income distribution. Empirical evidence has indicated...

As the world recovers only slowly from the 2008 financial crisis and Europe is facing a looming debt crisis, concerns have increased that the"new normal"-- a period of high unemployment, low returns on investment, high risks, and low growth -- may become protracted in advanced economies. If...

The world financial crisis that started in the US housing market in 2008 brought into evidence deep failures of prudential oversight, linked for the most part to a failure to comprehend and handle systemic risk in a way that could prevent systemic crises. This paper summarizes the responses to...

The core principles of Islam lay great emphasis on social justice, inclusion, and sharing of resources between the haves and the have nots. Islamic finance addresses the issue of"financial inclusion"or"access to finance"from two directions -- one through promoting risk-sharing contracts that...