June 2000 - The Basel Committee has proposed linking capital asset requirements for banks to the banks' private sector ratings. Doing so would reduce the capital requirements for banks that lend prudently in high-income countries; the same incentives would not apply in developing countries....

Remittances are a sizeable source of external financing for developing countries. In the L’Aquila 2009 G8 Summit, leaders pledged to reduce the cost of remittances by half in 5 years (from 10 to 5 percent). Yet, empirically, little is known about what drives the cost of remittances. Using...

Intro -- TABLE OF CONTENTS -- Cover -- Title -- Foreword -- Abstract -- Acknowledgments -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Regulatory and Supervisory Authority -- 3 Loan Classification -- 4 Classification of Multiple Loans -- 5 Guarantees and Collateral -- 6 Loan Reviews by Banks -- 7 Classification of...

This report reviews loan classification and provisioning practices in a broad sample of countries that differ in size, location and level of financial development. The survey conducted for the report compares the regulatory approaches adopted by industrial and emerging economies, and is intended...

Using historical data on sovereign and individual borrowers, the authors assess the potential impact on non-high-income countries of linking capital asset requirements for banks to private sector ratings, as the Basel committee has proposed. They show that linking bank's capital asset...