In recent decades, a majority of countries have experienced a systemic banking crisis requiring a major-and expensive-overhaul of their banking system. Not only do banking crises hit the budget with outlays that must be absorbed by higher taxes (or spending cuts), but they are costly in terms of...

Asset management companies have been used to address the overhang of bad debt in the financial system. There are two main types of asset management company: those set up to expedite corporate restructuring and those established for rapid disposal of assets. A review of seven asset management...

Few areas of the world have escaped significant losses from episodes of bank insolvency. Bank insolvency is more costly in the developing world, where losses represent a greater share of income. The authors present data on bank insolvency episodes since the late 1970s. This new database can be...

To encourage the private funding and provision of infrastructure services, governments have used specialized financing facilities to offer financial support to investors, often in the form of grants, soft loans, or guarantees. The authors present case studies of infrastructure financing...

The authors examine Thailand's macro-economy and micro-economy for the period 1988-97 to assess the extent to which the country's mix of macroeconomic and financial sector policies contributed to its economic crisis in 1997. They conclude that the crisis was fundamentally one of private sector...

The goals of financial restructuring are to re-establish the creditor-debtor relationships upon which the economy depends for an efficient allocation of capital, and to accomplish that objective at minimal cost. Costs include direct costs to taxpayers of financial assistance and the indirect...

The authors 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 external sources of...

We document the operational performance of (former and current) state enterprises over the 1992-1995 period for seven countries in Central and Eastern Europe (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia) using large samples of firm level data and a consistent...

We document that firms in eight East Asian countries and Japan diversify into more segments and engage into more related businessesas measured by the degree of vertical relatedness and complementaritythan firms in the USA. Using data for the 1990-6 period, we observe a trend towards...