The authors investigate what has motivated the large portfolio flows to several developing countries in recent years. Using monthly data on U.S. capital flows to nine Latin American and nine Asian countries (instead of monthly reserves data), they analyze the behavior of bond and equity flows to...

The authors analyze the role of institutions in resolving systemic banking crises for a broad sample of countries. Banking crises are fiscally costly, especially when policies like substantial liquidity support, explicit government guarantees on financial institutions’ liabilities, and...

The authors identify the ultimate ownership structure for 2,980 corporations in nine East Asian countries. They find that: A) More than half of those firms are controlled be a single shareholder. B) Smaller firms and older firms are more likely to be family-controlled. C) Patterns of controlling...

The East Asian financial crisis has been attributed in part to the corporate diversification associated with the misallocation of capital investment toward less profitable and more risky business segments. Much anecdotal evidence to support this view has surfaced since the crisis but there was...

The capital flows to Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union (CEE/FSU) represent a relatively small, albeit growing share of capital flows to developing countries. Taking all flows together, the total net flows to these 25 countries (Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus,...

This paper is part of a larger effort to study the determinants and impact of foreign direct investment. The authors examine flows of foreign direct investment to 46 developing countries to test whether such flows are autonomous or accommodating vis-a-vis the current account and other capital...

Firm surveys often indicate that firms complain a lot about lack of access to financial services, but financing constraints are difficult to identify, given demand and supply considerations and with only surveys based on firms'perceptions. Specifically, it is difficult to separate demand for...

The 1992 Czechoslavakia mass privatization program involving about 1,500 eneterprises and implemented through a voucher scheme with competitive bidding was a bold step in changing the ownership and governance of a large part of the economy. It represents a clear test case of one approach, and...

Researchers and policymakers have in recent years paid considerable attention to the phenomenon of capital flight. Researchers have focused on four questions: What concept should be used to measure capital flight? What figure for capital flight will emerge, using this measure? Can the occurrence...

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...