South Africa has made substantial progress in addressing the recommendations of the Financial Sector Assessment Program and is continuing to build upon these accomplishments. The Financial Services Board and Department of Trade and Industry both are organizations with the legal authority to...

This 2008 Article IV Consultation highlights that the financial market turbulence has exposed vulnerabilities in the German financial system. The German consumer’s conservatism under the current uncertain conditions will amplify the export slowdown, and investment decisions are likely to...

Emerging European countries have made large strides in developing their local capital markets since the early-1990s. However, the rate of development has been widely disparate across countries and market segments, underpinned by the varying degrees of progress made in key areas such as...

This paper surveys the foreign exchange markets, money and secondary government security markets, and stock exchanges in 107 smaller economy countries. The underdevelopment of these markets impedes risk transfer, monetary policy, corporate financing, and the capacity to absorb capital inflows....

This paper takes a closer look at the prudential and regulatory measures needed to prepare India's financial system to manage the risks arising from fuller capital account convertibility (FCAC). The paper contributes to the debate on FCAC in two ways. First, it reviews the potential and existing...

The Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) which comes to life on November 1, 2007, represents a major step toward the creation of a single, more competitive, cross-border securities market in Europe. Together with other components of the European Commission's Financial Services...

This technical note discusses the structure of the Danish capital market and related issues. The focus is on the organization and functioning of domestic securities markets. The note provides a regional perspective on these markets. It reviews the prudential framework for capital markets, and...

This paper finds that systematic default risk, or the event of widespread defaults in the corporate sector, is an important determinant of equity returns. Moreover, the market price of systematic default risk is one order of magnitude higher than the market price of other risk factors. In...