Resolving systemic banking and corporate distress is not easy. The large scale of the East Asian financial crisis has made the task even more daunting in Indonesia, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, and Thailand. Two years into the process, bank and corporate restructuring is still a work in...

In recent years, electronic finance, especially online banking, and brokerage services, has reshaped the financial landscape. This paper reviews these developments, and analyzes their implications for consumers, governments, and financial service providers. First, it reviews the e-finance...

Laeven, Klingebiel, and Kroszner investigate the link between financial crises and industry growth. They analyze data from 19 industrial and developing countries that have experienced financial crises during the past 30 years to investigate how financial crises affect sectors dependent on...

Financial intermediation and financial services industries have undergone many changes in the past two decades due to deregulation, globalization, and technological advances. The framework for regulating finance has seen many changes as well, with approaches adapting to new issues arising in...

Using cross-country and panel regressions, the authors show that financial sector development significantly reduces undernourishment (hunger), largely through gaining farmers and others access to productivity-enhancing equipment, translating into beneficial income and general effects. They show...

As in other sectors, competition in finance matters for allocative, productive and dynamic efficiency. Theory suggests, however, that unfettered competition is not first best given the special features of finance. I review these analytics and describe how to assess the degree of competition in...

Thailand's economic crisis in 1997 was fundamentally one of private sector debt, rooted in private behavior that affected the magnitude and composition of investment and how it was financed. Thailand's crisis provides further evidence that financial liberalization must be carefully managed...