While deregulated financial markets and strong competition are commonly viewed as prerequisites for successful economic development, recent empirical evidence suggests that financial liberalization, if not well phased, can lead to costly financial crises. This paper focuses on the roles of...

A well-designed deposit insurance system (DIS) will provide incentives for citizens to keep the financial system sound. However, a poorly designed DIS can foster a financial crisis. This paper, therefore, makes recommendations for creating and running a limited, incentive-compatible, DIS. The...

We revisit the link between bailouts and bank risk taking. The expectation of government support to failing banks creates moral hazard—increases bank risk taking. However, when a bank’s success depends on both its effort and the overall stability of the banking system, a government’s...

The current crisis calls for two main sets of policy measures. First, measures to repair the financial system. Second, measures to increase demand and restore confidence. While some of these measures overlap, the focus of this note is on the second set of policies, and more specifically, given...

This paper examines the determinants of bank failures in the US banking system during the recent financial crisis. The analysis employs a dataset on the financial statements of FDIC-insured commercial banks and their bank holding companies, along with information on bank failures, mergers, and...

This paper investigates the impact of the new capital requirements introduced under the Basel III framework on bank lending rates and loan growth. Higher capital requirements, by raising banks’ marginal cost of funding, lead to higher lending rates. The data presented in the paper suggest...

Only a minority of countries have succeeded in establishing a developed financial system, despite widespread financial liberalization. Confronted with this finding, the political institutions view claims that sustained financial deepening is most likely to take place in institutional...

Did the occurrence of systemic banking crises in the 1990s and 2000s significantly alter the behavior of banks in the Mercosur? The objective of this paper is to answer this question by analyzing changes in bank behavior after crises in the Mercosur region. To our knowledge, this is the first...