This paper finds that shareholder-friendly corporate governance is positively associated with bank insolvency risk, as proxied by the Z-score and the Merton's distance to default measure, for an international sample of banks over the 2004-08 period. Banks are special in that"good"corporate...

Banking markets are becoming increasingly international through financial liberalization and general economic integration. Using bank-level data for 80 countries for 1988-95, the authors examine the extent of foreign ownership in national banking markets. They compare net interest margins,...

Using bank data for 80 countries for 1988-95, the authors show that differences in interest margins and bank profitability reflect various determinants: bank characteristics, macroeconomic conditions, explicit and implicit bank taxes, regulation of deposit insurance, general financial structure,...

There has been little empirical work on the effectiveness of safety nets designed for banks, for lack of data on safety net design across countries. The authors examine cross-country data on bank-level interest expense and deposit growth for evidence of market discipline in individual countries....

This report shows empirically that international differences in withholding tax rates are indeed largely reflected in bank credit terms. Using a sample of 510 loans to 14 debtor nations originated between 1971 and 1981, the author finds that the developing countries have been able to reduce...

The author examines the financing of U.S. direct investment abroad. Using a theoretical model, he first examines how home country investors can use debt finance to reduce their host country tax liability and to reduce the capital investment distortion attributable to foreign taxes. Empirically,...

Top commercial banks seemed to have weathered the debt crisis, however it remains to be seen whether their current strength and stability will help reestablish normal credit relationships between private banks and the developing countries. Some losses by private creditors are likely to be part...

The authors investigate the optimal boundary between the public and private production sectors. They use a model in which government and private production coexist -in which a range of production activities can be carried out by either the government or the private sector. In effect, the...

Since 1994, the World Bank has provided partial credit guarantees to private financiers of several large infrastructure projects in developing countries. A major objective of the partial guarantee program is to leverage Bank resources so as to provide developing countries with better private...

Countries differ in the extent to which their financial systems are bank-based or market-based. The financial systems of Germany and Japan, for example, are considered bank-based because banks play a leading role in mobilizing savings, allocating capital, overseeing investment decisions of...