China’s rapid credit expansion in 2009–10 brought local government financing platforms (LGFPs) into the spotlight. This paper discusses their function, reasons behind their recent expansion, and risks they are posing to the financial sector, local governments, and sovereign balance sheet....

Since the start of the 2008 - 09 financial crisis, the Polish Overnight Index Average (POLONIA) has persistently been below the policy rate, suggesting a limited influence of the NBP’s open market operations on the short-term interbank rate. In this regard, this paper analyzes the behavior of...

Systemic risk remains a major concern to policymakers since widespread defaults in the corporate and financial sectors could pose substantial costs to society. Forward-looking measures and/or indicators of systemic default risk are thus needed to identify potential buildups of vulnerability in...

Many developing economies are heavily exposed to commodity markets, leaving them vulnerable to the vagaries of international commodity prices. This paper examines the use of commodity options-including plain vanilla, risk reversal, and barrier options-to hedge such risk. It then proposes the use...