This paper investigates the factors that determine a country's decision to adopt explicit deposit insurance using data on 170 countries over the 1960-2003 period. Specifically, we focus on the role played by outside influences and internal political factors both in adopting deposit insurance and...

Minimalist economists stubbornly resist Charles Kindleberger's characterization of investor expectations in a financial bubble as quot;irrational.quot; This paper seeks to resolve the controversy by imbedding Kindleberger's well-researched, impressionistic theory of financial crises into an...

Risk-shifting occurs when creditors or guarantors are exposed to loss without receiving adequate compensation. This paper seeks to measure and compare how well authorities in 56 countries controlled bank risk shifting during the 1990s. Although significant risk shifting occurs on average,...

The intensity of recent turbulence in financial markets has surprised nearly everyone. This paper searches out the root causes of the crisis, distinguishing them from scapegoating explanations that have been used in policy circles to divert attention from the underlying breakdown of incentives....

This paper illustrates the trends in deposit insurance adoption. It discusses the cross-country differences in design, and synthesizes the policy messages from cross-country empirical work as well as individual country experiences. The paper develops practical lessons from this work and distills...

The authors seek to identify factors that influence decisions about a country's financial safety net, using a new dataset on 170 countries covering the 1960-2003 period. Specifically, they focus on how outside influences, economic development, crisis pressures, and political institutions affect...

Developing countries should first address weaknesses in their informational and supervisory environments before adopting explicit deposit insurance.Explicit deposit insurance has been spreading rapidly in recent years, even to countries not advanced in financial and institutional development....

Productlines of traditionally heterogeneous financial institutions are rapidly fusing into a homogeneous blend, institutions and market structures are reshaping themselves to lower the cost of serving customer demand for financial services.This paper contends that contemporary adaptations...

Previous studies of event returns surrounding bank mergers show that banks gain value in megamergers and additional value when they absorb in-market competitors. A portion of these gains has been traced to the increased bargaining power of banks vis-a-vis regulators and other competitors. We...