The authors offer evidence that U.S. interest rate policy has an important influence in the determination of credit spreads on emerging market bonds over U.S. benchmark treasuries and therefore on their cost of capital. Their analysis improves on the existing literature and understanding by...

More than eight years after the introduction of the euro, impacts on developing countries have been relatively modest. Overall, the euro has become much more important in debt issuance than in official foreign exchange reserve holdings. The former has benefited from the creation of a large set...

The current financial crisis has highlighted the danger that declines in confidence can have a self-fulfilling effect on economic activity. In this paper, the authors consider ways of measuring investor and consumer confidence, and try to explain the evolution of confidence using measures of...

Backed by rapid economic growth, growing financial clout, and a newfound sense of assertiveness in recent years, the BRIC countries - Brazil, Russia, India, and China - are a driving force behind an incipient transformation of the world economy away from a US-dominated system toward a multipolar...

This Note examines the corporate roots of the financial crisis in East Asia. It summarizes the findings of a study of corporate financial performance in East Asian economies - Hong Kong, Indonesia, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan (China), and Thailand. To allow a...

In the wake of the periodic financial crises of the late 1990s, the international financial institutions and many experts have recognized the need for a strategy to avoid and mitigate the severity of crises in the corporate sector. Addressing this problem requires the complementary efforts of...

Non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs) are becoming an increasingly important segment of the financial system in some developing countries. This book aims to create awareness of the promise of NBFIs for developing countries and to assist policymakers in creating a coherent policy structure and...