This paper uses firm-level data from the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Surveys to study the process of convergence of transition countries with developed market economies. The study focuses on competition and market structure, finance and the structure of lending to firms, and...

This paper focuses on developments in the European Economic and Monetary Union sovereign debt markets in the past decade. The ?rst part analyzes the integration and segmentation structure of the bond markets of the Economic and Monetary Union before and after the sovereign debt crisis, by...

Although there is fast-growing policy interest in offering financial products to help rural households manage risk, the literature is still scant as to which products are the most effective. This paper uses a randomized field experiment in Senegal and Burkina Faso to compare male and female...

Farmers in developing countries face a wide array of risks. Yet they often lack formal financial instruments to protect against risks. This paper examines the impact on consumption, investment, and welfare of the separate provision of three financial products: weather insurance, savings, and...

This paper examines the financial-stability challenges that will most likely be faced by European emerging-market countries in adapting to the post-crises environment, including the new financial-stability architecture and the other remaining weaknesses revealed by the global and European...

Whether the likelihood of a credit boom ending is dependent on its age or not, or whether the respective behavior is smooth or bumpy are important issues to which the economic literature has not given attention yet. This paper tries to fill that gap, exploring those issues with a proper duration...

In an international context, this paper analyzes the main drivers of Brazil's bank spreads measured by the net interest margin, by estimating internationally comparable measures for (i) institutional and regulatory (micro-) factors; (ii) macro-economic factors; and (iii) banking competition...

This paper distinguishes among various types of capital and examines their effect on system-wide fragility. The analysis finds that higher quality forms of capital reduce the systemic risk contribution of banks, whereas lower quality forms can have a destabilizing impact, particularly during...

This paper examines the extent of international consumption risk sharing for a group of 50 industrial and developing countries. The analysis is based on the empirical implementation of a model of partial consumption insurance whose parameters have the natural interpretation of coefficients of...

This paper uses Ethiopian data to explore credit rationing in semi-formal credit markets and its effects on farmers'resource allocation and crop productivity. Credit rationing -- both voluntarily and involuntarily -- is found to be widespread in the sampled rural villages, largely because of...