The authors analyze how foreign entry affected domestic banks in Argentina during an especially intense period of entry in the mid-1990s. Their results are consistent with the hypothesis that foreign banks enter areas where they have a competitive advantage, putting pressure on the domestic...

In recent years, foreign bank participation has increased tremendously in several developing countries. In Argentina, Chile, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, for example, more than fifty percent of banking assets are now in foreign-controlled banks. In Asia, Africa, The Middle East, and...

Should we expect deposit insurance to have a positive effect on development of the financial sector? All insurance pools individual risks: premiums are paid into a fund from which losses are met. In most circumstances, a residual claimant to the fund (typically a private insurance company) loses...

Existing evidence on the effect of foreign bank penetration on lending to small and medium-size enterprises is ambiguous. Case studies of developing countries show that foreign banks lend less to such firms than domestic banks do. But cross-country studies find that foreign bank entry fosters...

Using a large panel dataset of Chinese industrial firms, the authors examine the determinants of access to loans from formal financial intermediaries and extension of trade credit. Poorly performing state-owned enterprises were more likely to redistribute credit to firms with less privileged...

The authors assess the effect of privatization on performance in a panel of Nigerian banks for the period 1990-2001. They find evidence of performance improvement in nine banks that were privatized, which is remarkable given the inhospitable environment for true financial intermediation. Their...

In recent years foreign bank participation has increased tremendously in Latin America. Some observers argue that foreign bank entry will benefit Latin American banking systems by reducing the volatility of loans and deposits and increasing efficiency. Others are concerned that foreign banks...

The authors jointly analyze the static, selection, and dynamic effects of domestic, foreign, and state ownership on bank performance. They argue that it is important to include indicators of all the relevant governance effects in the same model."Nonrobustness"checks (which purposely exclude some...

The authors examine the effect of different design features of deposit insurance, on long-run financial development, defined to include the level of financial activity, the stability of the banking sector, and the quality of resource allocation. Their empirical analysis is guided by recent...

This paper focuses on developments in the European Economic and Monetary Union sovereign debt markets in the past decade. The ?rst part analyzes the integration and segmentation structure of the bond markets of the Economic and Monetary Union before and after the sovereign debt crisis, by...