This paper estimates an early warning system for predicting systemic banking crises in a sample of low income countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Since the average duration of crises in this sample of countries is longer than one year, the predictive performance of standard binomial logit models is...

African development finance institutions (DFIs) can play an important role in addressing market failures in credit markets. However, in spite of their importance, very little is known about them. This paper contributes to fill this gap by assessing the compliance of African DFIs with...

Motivated by the recent debate on the macroeconomic implications of the new bank regulatory standards known as Basel III, this paper examines the impact of higher capital ratios on aggregate output in a comprehensive panel of African economies. We quantify benefits stemming from lower...

This paper presents evidence on implementation of the World Bank Group and Financial Sector Reform and Strengthening Initiative "Principles for Public Credit Guarantee Schemes for Small and Medium Enterprises" . The evidence is based on a self-assessment of 60 schemes in 54 countries. Overall,...

This paper assesses the vulnerability of credit guarantee schemes to the physical and transition risks related to climate change. Based on unique sectoral and spatial data from 29 European credit guarantee schemes linked to a range of vulnerability metrics, the paper identifies...

Access to finance is a key obstacle for the growth and development of small and medium-sized enterprises in fragile and conflict affected situations. This paper provides empirical evidence on the key macrofinancial and institutional drivers of financial inclusion of small and medium-sized...

Economic activity depends on a flourishing biodiversity and intact environment through the provision of ecosystem services. The depletion of these services poses physical risks for the financial sector. This paper attempts to measure the potential exposure of the banking systems in 20 emerging...

Minimizing the adverse social and economic consequences of the energy transition is an important social aspiration. It is the essence of the "just transition," the connective tissue that binds together climate goals with social outcomes centered around jobs. This policy note proposes the first...

Recent calls on central banks and financial regulators to use the tools at their disposal to help mitigate the negative economic and social impacts of climate policies are based on several false analogies between the energy transition and the "just" energy transition. The same false analogies...

There is increasing recognition that climate-related and environmental risks are a source of financial risks. Using publicly available data, this paper attempts a preliminary estimation of the physical and transition risks for the banking sector in a sample of economies in Latin America and the...