The development of government bond markets and, in particular, their currency composition have recently received much interest, partly because of their relation with financial crises. The authors study the determinants of the size and currency composition of government bond markets for a panel...

Drawing on country experience, the authors analyze alternative frameworks for providing financial services. Scope of permissible activities: The integrated banking model (commercial banking fully integrated with other financial services, including investment banking) benefits both financial...

The authors study the determinants of the growing migration of stock market activity to international financial centers. They use a sample of 77 countries and document that higher economic growth and more macroeconomic stability help stock market development. Countries with higher income per...

As many East Asian countries plunged into economic decline, the structure of concentrated ownership and associated corporate governance, along with weak corporate performance, have been blamed for the crisis. There is little empirical evidence, however, of the nature of ownership structures in...

Weaknesses in the corporate sector have increasingly been cited as important factors in financial crises in both emerging markets and industrial countries. Analysts have pointed to weak corporate performance and risky financing patterns as major causes of the East Asian financial crisis. And...

East Asia's financial crisis has been attributed in part to the weak performance and risky financial structures of Asian corporations. In the period before Asia's financial crisis, however, analysts were not suggesting that the financial structure of many East Asian corporations would be unable...

The Czech Republic's mass-privatization scheme changed the governance of many firms in a short time. The authors show that mass privatization was effective in improving firm management because of the concentrated ownership structure that resulted. For a cross section of 706 firms for the period...

Using data for more than 2,000 companies from nine East Asian economies, the authors examine the interactions between ultimate ownership, group affiliation, and corporate diversification. They find evidence that allocation resources within business groups is associated with higher market...

The authors assess Thailand's policy options for reducing large corporations'vulnerability to economic shocks and improving their corporate governance - and for providing smaller firms a more stable funding structure. Using data for firms listed on Thailand's stock exchange, they empirically...

The authors test several propositions derived by Shleifer and Vishny (1994, 1996) about how privatization and stabilization (hard budget constraints) affect enterprise behavior. They document the changes in financing, employment, and operating efficiency that have occurred in more than 6300...