This paper studies whether compliance with the Basel Core Principles for Effective Banking Supervision (BCP) improves bank soundness. BCP compliance assessments provide a unique source of information about the quality of bank supervision and regulation around the world. The authors find a...

A rapidly growing empirical literature is studying the causes and consequences of bank fragility in contemporary economies. The authors reviews the two basic methodologies adopted in cross-country empirical studies-the signals approach and the multivariate probability model-and their application...

Using a multi-country panel of banks, the authors study whether better capitalized banks fared better in terms of stock returns during the financial crisis. They differentiate among various types of capital ratios: the Basel risk-adjusted ratio; the leverage ratio; the Tier I and Tier II ratios;...

This paper studies whether compliance with the Basel Core Principles for effective banking supervision is associated with bank soundness. Using data for more than 3,000 banks in 86 countries, the authors find that neither the overall index of compliance with the Basel Core Principles nor the...

This paper considers the determinants of exports of modern services and traditional services. It considers the growth of export volumes as well as export surges, that is, the periods of rapid sustained export growth. It asks whether the determinants of export growth rates and export surges...

In May 2013, Federal Reserve officials first began to talk of the possibility of tapering their security purchases. This tapering talk had a sharp negative impact on emerging markets. Different countries, however, were affected very differently. This paper uses data on exchange rates, foreign...

This paper provides an assessment of India's inflation-targeting regime. It shows that the Reserve Bank of India is best characterized as a flexible inflation targeter: contrary to criticism, it does not neglect changes in the output gap when setting policy rates. The paper does not find that...

India has attained much economic success in the past three decades. Yet an economic deceleration in recent years has generated worried commentaries about the country's growth outlook. This paper offers a long-term perspective on India's growth experience. Analyzing the past five decades of data,...

This paper analyzes the use of capital flow measures in emerging markets. Drawing on a specially compiled new database of capital flow measures, it establishes that policy makers in emerging market economies do not use capital flow measures as an active tool at business cycle frequency. While...

In many developing countries less than half the population has access to formal financial services, and in most of Africa less than one in five households has access. Lack of access to finance is often the critical mechanism for generating persistent income inequality, as well as slower economic...