Journal Special Issue
Impact of the Liberalization of the Exchange Rate and Financial Markets in Sub-Saharan Africa
This special issue of the Journal of International Development presents the results of a study initiated two years ago by UNU/WIDER on `The impact of the liberalization of the exchange rate and financial markets in sub-Saharan Africa'. The project...
Policy Brief
Stranger than Fiction? Understanding Institutional Changes and Economic Development
The volume Institutional Change and Economic Development fills some important gaps in our understanding of the relationship between institutional changes and economic development. It does so by developing new discourses on the 'technology of...
Working Paper
Impact of Income and Non-Income Shocks on Child Labour
This paper investigates the impact of income and non-income shocks on child labour using a model in which the household maximizes utility from consumption as well as human capital development of the child. Two types of shocks are considered...
Working Paper
Financial Markets and Governments
A survey of the changing relationship between the market for political services and the market for financial services.
Working Paper
Prudential Regulation of Banks in Less Developed Economies
Beginning with an empirical analysis of banking crises using a logit econometric model covering a sample of developed and developing countries between 1980-97, the paper suggests that crises are more likely in years of low growth and high real...
Working Paper
Will the Euro Trigger More Monetary Unions in Africa?
We analyse the prospects for greater monetary integration in Africa, in the wake of EMU. We argue that the structural characteristics of African economies are quite different to the EMU members but that much can be gained from monetary cooperation...
Working Paper
The Banking System and Monetary Aggregates Following Financial Sector Reforms
This paper discusses the process, problems and impacts of the financial sector reform in Indonesia, particularly since the late 1980s. The reform has encouraged a surge in private sector capital inflows to supplement the already high domestic savings...
Working Paper
The financial inclusion agenda
Using a unique district-level panel dataset, we investigate the effect of banking system penetration on financial inclusion in Ghana. To purge potential endogeneity bias in the underlying relationship, we exploit a change in the policy environment of...
Journal Article
Prudential Regulation of Banks in Less Developed Economies
This article argues that developing countries face inherent obstacles in setting up efficient financial regulation, and building up a sound banking sector: the presence of multiple tasks and multiple principals, poor institutions, lack of economies...
Book Chapter
Savings and Financial Sector Development :
In C. Green, C. Kirkpatrick, and V. Murinde (eds), Finance and Development: Survey of Theory, Evidence and Policy.
Working Paper
Into the Void
Twenty years after the fall of the iron curtain—which for decades had separated East from West—most countries of Central and Eastern Europe are now members of the European Union; some have even adopted the euro. Nonetheless, these countries have also...
Working Paper
Liquidity Black Holes
Modern financial regulation has been about the spread of market-sensitive risk-management systems for banks, the spill-over of this approach to other financial institutions and the retreat of regulatory ambition. There is evidence that these trends...
Journal Article
Income Risk, Coping Strategies, and Safety Nets
Poor rural and urban households in developing countries face substantial risks, which they handle with risk-management and risk-coping strategies, including self-insurance through savings and informal insurance mechanisms. Despite these mechanisms...
Book
Insurance Against Poverty
Poor people in developing countries are often affected by droughts, floods, illness, crop failure, job loss, and economic downturns. Much of their energy goes into coping with these shocks and into day-to-day survival. While insurance and credit...
Book
Domestic Resource Mobilization and Financial Development
This significant and timely volume offers crucial insights into the constantly evolving debate within the international development community regarding the mobilization of domestic resources and the crucial role that financial development can and...
Book
Financial Development, Institutions, Growth and Poverty Reduction
This volume explores the various linkages between financial development, institutions, growth and poverty reduction in low-income and transition countries. It is the result of a two-year research project undertaken by UNU-WIDER, and the strong range...
Working Paper
Financial Development and Income Inequality in Rural China 1991-2000
Financial development can exert a significant influence on the distribution of income. In this paper, using Chinese provincial data over the period of 1991-2000 and applying the generalized method of moment (GMM) techniques, we investigate the...
Working Paper
Institutional Analysis of Financial Market Fragmentation in Sub-Saharan Africa
The paper examines the source of financial market fragmentation in sub-Saharan Africa in the framework of institutional economics. Based on fieldwork data from Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, and Tanzania, it analyses financial risk management, the...
Working Paper
Financial Sector Development and Growth
This paper documents the financial and institutional developments of China during the past two decades, when China was successfully transformed from a rigid central-planning economy to a dynamic market economy following its unique path. We...
Working Paper
Insolvency and Debt Recovery Procedures in Economic Development
Insolvency and debt recovery procedures are as crucial to a well-performing financial sector as credit provision itself. They are even more important in Africa, where attempts are underway to create fully-fledged financial markets. For the financial...
Working Paper
Postconflict Countries
This paper reviews the challenges and experiences in rebuilding fiscal institutions in postconflict environments, based on advice from the IMF's Fiscal Affairs Department to selected countries. The recommended strategy involved a three-step process...
Working Paper
Why Isn't There More Financial Intermediation in Developing Countries?
This paper proposes to organize thinking about the opportunities for improving and extending financial markets and safety nets for the poor, by focusing on factors that may explain why the linkage of local financial networks and safety nets with the...
Working Paper
Finance and Growth
This study is an attempt towards an integration of financial development and its effect on the real sector via the transmission mechanism with special reference to developing and emerging market economies. It finds two cointegrating relations between...
Working Paper
Understanding the Relationship between Institutions and Economic Development
The paper tries to improve our understanding on the role of institutions in development by critically examining the current orthodox discourse on institutions and highlighting some of its key problems. After discussing some definitional problems, the...