The paper assesses the degree of banking competition and efficiency in Italy? over time as well as compared to that in other countries, such as France, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The paper finds competition in the Italian banking sector has intensified in loan and...

Export credit agencies (ECAs) have played a critical role in financing for developing countries in recent years, and officially supported export credits have been growing in volume. The current export credit exposure to developing countries and economies in transition has reached almost half a...

After several years of transition, major weaknesses in the banking and enterprise sectors remain the root cause of low growth. A large share of nonperforming assets in the portfolio of large banks, stemming from losses in the enterprise sector, has been a key impediment to financial sector...

Several of the transition economies are devolving fiscal authority to subnational governments at a time when it is also important to consolidate fiscal policy. This can be problematic because, without appropriate care, the central governments ability to determine the level and structure of...

This paper discusses the behavior of futures prices for foreign exchange in Brazil during a period of high inflation and successive stabilization attempts (1989-92). After testing for futures prices unbiasedness and predicability by applying the Generalized Method of Moments, the paper argues...

The rapid growth in China’s domestic investment in recent decades has generated a large appetite for global goods, including from sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This paper estimates the impact of changes in China’s investment growth on SSA’s exports. Although rising trading links...

Africa will account for 80 percent of the projected 4 billion increase in the global population by 2100. The accompanying increase in its working age population creates a window of opportunity, which if properly harnessed, can translate into higher growth and yield a demographic dividend. We...