Modern banking institutions were virtually non-existent in the planned economies of central Europe and the former Soviet Union. In the early transition period, banking sectors began to develop during several years of macroeconomic decline and turbulence accompanied by repeated bank crises....

The recent global financial crisis has generated considerable interest in reviewing the regulatory environment surrounding the banking sectors in most countries and proposals for changes designed to avoid such a severe outcome in the future. In this paper, we consider a particular aspect...

In this paper, we present indirect evidence that the IMF’s insistence on foreign control of two large nationwide Korean banks in exchange for short-term support during the 1997 financial crisis helped restrain soft related lending practices. News signaling the likely sale of a bank to a...