Using a sample of 49 countries, we show that countries with poorer investor protections, measured by both the character of legal rules and the quality of law enforcement, have smaller and narrower capital markets. These findings apply to both equity and debt markets. In particular, French civil...

We model an economy in which domestic banks and firms face incentive constraints, as in Holmstrom and Tirole (1997). Firms borrow from banks and uninformed investors, and can collude with banks to reduce the intensity of monitoring. We study the general equilibrium effects of capital flows...

This report discusses major developments in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR), and updates the statistical tables on recent economic developments and provides an overview of the real sector. Factors that have limited revenue collections and developments in the monetary and...

In recent years, the IMF has released a growing number of reports and other documents covering economic and financial developments and trends in member countries. Each report, prepared by a staff team after discussions with government officials, is published at the option of the member country.

Despite the liberalization of foreign portfolio investment around the globe since the early 1980s, the home-bias phenomenon is still found to exist. Using a relatively new IMF survey dataset of cross-border equity holdings, this paper tests new structural equations from a consumption-based...

Aims to evaluate the determinants of international pharmaceutical firms’ foreign direct investments (FDI) in the Chinese pharmaceutical manufacturing industry. Focuses on comparing the differences in FDIs between early entrants who started FDI before 1992 and the late entrants whose FDI...

Illustrates the growth of foreign investment in China, which is most often dealt with through Chinese‐foreign equity joint ventures and discusses the business issues involved. Traces the development of the Chinese accounting system, which is now largely in line with international standards,...

Foreign divestments have become a regular feature of global investment patterns. These divestments have mainly been explained by changes in the economic and institutional factors of the host countries. Recently, as institutional quality has improved in emerging economies, perceived risks have...

This paper introduces a comprehensive database on bank ownership for 137 countries over 1995-2009, and reviews foreign bank behavior and impact. It documents substantial increases in foreign bank presence, with many more home and host countries. Current market shares of foreign banks average 20...