This paper presents a model of bank risk taking and government guarantees. Levered banks take excessive risk, as their actions are not fully priced at the margin by debt holders. The impact of government guarantees on bank risk taking depends critically on the portion of bank investors that can...

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,...

Sovereign credit guarantees and government on-lending can catalyze private sector investment and fulfill specific policy objectives. However, contingent liabilities stemming from guarantees and contingent assets stemming from on-lending expose governments to risk. Prudent risk management,...

Partial credit guarantees have been a central tool in countries' strategies to support firms through the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper presents the results of a set of surveys covering 19 partial credit guarantees in 12 countries in the Latin America region, which were repeated at different...

This paper presents data on 76 partial credit guarantee schemes across 46 developed and developing countries. Based on theory, the authors discuss different organizational features of credit guarantee schemes and their variation across countries. They focus on the respective role of government...

The relationship between violence and chronic poverty has been studied mostly in the context of war or long-term episodes of conflict. In contrast to previous studies, this paper explores whether violence that does not include the shattering of infrastructure impacts the chance that poverty may...