1,721,256 research outputs found
Resolving Ireland’s Banking Crisis
Full text linkThe Irish banking system has been, in effect, on a life-support system since September 2008. Complacency resulted in the banks fuelling the late stage of an obvious construction bubble with massive foreign borrowing, leaving them exposed to solvency and liquidity risks which in past times would have been inconceivable. The Government’s steps to put the system back on a sound basis must have regard both to protecting taxpayers’ interests and to ensuring that credit flows to the economy are not hampered by inadequate capital or liquidity.
Taxation of Financial Intermediation : Theory and Practice for Emerging Economines
No full textThis volume examines the possibilities
and pitfalls to successful financial sector tax reform from
theoretical, empirical and practical perspectives. It
explores the possibilities and limitations of "big
ideas" such as removal of all capital income taxation,
the application of VAT to financial services or heavy
reliance on financial transactions taxes. The risks of
attempting to use financial sector taxes as corrective
instruments are stressed. Two defensive criteria are
advanced as key: making the financial tax system as
arbitrage- and inflation-proof as is practicable. Each
commissioned essay develops a distinct aspect of the area.
Theoretical chapters model the impact of taxes on
intermediaries, the design of optimal tax schemes, the role
of imperfect information and the relationship with saving.
Current practice in the industrial world and case studies of
distorted national systems provide an empirical
underpinning. Finally, experience with several of the main
practical issues is discussed in chapters ranging from the
income tax treatment of intermediary loan-loss reserves, the
VAT, financial transactions taxes, deposit insurance and
inflation. Contributors are distinguished academics and practitioners
YPFS Lessons Learned Oral History Project: An Interview with Patrick Honohan
Full text linkSuggested citation form: Honohan, Patrick, 2022. “Lessons Learned Interview by Maryann Haggerty, February 25, 2021.†Yale Program on Financial Stability Lessons Learned Oral History Project. Transcript. https://ypfs.som.yale.edu/library/ypfs-lesson-learned-oral-history-project-interview-patrick-honoha
Household financial assets in the process of development
Full text linkSystematic information on household financial asset holdings in developing countries is very sparse. The author reviews some available data and current policy debates. Although financial asset holdings by households are highly concentrated, deeper financial systems are correlated with improved income distribution. For low-income countries, the relevant question for poor households is not how much financial assets they have, but whether they have any access to financial products at all. Building on and synthesizing disparate data collection efforts by others, the author produces new estimates of access percentages for over 150 countries. Across countries access is negatively correlated with poverty rates, but the correlation is not a robust one: thus the supposed anti-poverty potential of financial access remains econometrically elusive. Despite policy focus on the value of credit instruments, it is deposit products that tend to be the first to be used as prosperity increases, before more sophisticated savings products and borrowing.Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Investment and Investment Climate,Financial Intermediation,Settlement of Investment Disputes
Globalization and National Financial Systems
No full textThe volume is divided into five
traditional areas of finance: the macroeconomy, banking,
securities markets, pension issues, and regulations. Four
cross-cutting messages emerge. First, the erosion of
national frontiers by trade, tourism, migration, and capital
account liberalization means that residents of all countries
have substantial financial assets, and often liabilities
denominated in foreign currencies at home or abroad. Any
analysis of national financial systems must take this into
account. More important, this factor constrains
governments' use of macroeconomic and financial policy
and may contribute to economic fluctuations. Second,
individuals and firms benefit substantially from the
improved risk and return menu associated with global
diversification. Diversification is of particular importance
in developing countries where the lack of size and diversity
of the national economy results in instability in the value
of production. Third, the small size of most developing
countries limits the efficiency and quality of financial
services: banking, equity markets, and pensions. Thus
cross-border provision of financial services, one facet of
globalization, has potential benefits for small economies.
Fourth, taking full advantage of the opportunities presented
by globalization and minimizing its costs depend on
effective regulation and supervision to ensure good quality
information, transparency, market integrity, and prudent
investing by banks and pension funds
Financial Sector Policy for Developing Countries : A Reader
Full text linkThe dramatic events of the late 1990s,
which followed a wave of financial crises going back to the
early 1980s, brought to center stage the issue of financial
sector policy in developing countries. Many recent books
have presented a chronology and interpretation of the
crises, but it is little apreciated that these financial
sector problems had been brewing for decades and that a
small number of scholars had long been evolving an approach
to undertanding the structure and dynamics of these sectors.
Spearheaded by a group led by Millard Long, the World Bank
began studying more than 20 years ago the problems, risks,
and policy solutions surrounding private finance. This
volume contains a collection of essays drawing on that
accumulated experience and offering a wide perspective based
on extensive real-world institutional experience. They are a
useful reader on a wide range of the financial policy issues
that are central in developing economies today. They reflect
also the evolving approach of the Bank's financial
sector team and represent the knowledge that the team has
accumulated over the years
Banking sector crises and inequality
Full text linkAn apparent temporary narrowing of income inequality has been observed during several recent banking crises. But it would be a mistake to conclude that such crises don't matter for the poor. For one thing, the correlation is not strong, and the opposite pattern has also been present. Besides, the poor are much less able to absorb a cut in income: safety-net policies are crucial during a downturn even if the gap between rich and poor has temporarily narrowed. More fundamentally, distributional shifts during the crisis may be less important than the fact that underlying financial policy and infrastructures conducive to crisis can also be associated with more unequal societies.
Dollarization and exchange rate fluctuations
Full text linkAlthough the worldwide growth in dollarization of bank deposits has recently slowed, it has already reached very high levels in dozens of countries. Building on earlier findings that allowed the main cross-country variations in the share of dollars to be explained in terms of national policies and institutions, this paper turns to analysis of short-run variations, particularly the response of dollarization to exchange rate changes, which is shown to be too small to warrant"fear of floating"by dollarized economies. But high dollarization is shown to increase the risk of depreciation and even suspension, as indicated by interest rate spreads. While specific policy is needed to deal with the risks associated with dollarization, the underlying causes of unwanted dollarization should also be tackled.Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Macroeconomic Management,Fiscal&Monetary Policy,Financial Economics
Measuring microfinance access : building on existing cross-country data
Full text linkGiven the acknowledged need for a new effort to expand the set of available data on direct access to financial services, including a focus on access by those at low income, Honohan provides a selective review of the diverse sources of data that exist and considers how best to build on them. He proposes a basic framework within which to consider the analysis of the interesting questions: (1) How does access affect poverty and productivity? and (2) What hinders access? The author discusses existing and potential contribution of household and business user surveys, surveys of providers and their regulators, and surveys of experts, and assesses their relative strengths.Banks&Banking Reform,Environmental Economics&Policies,Health Economics&Finance,Poverty Assessment,Governance Indicators
Ireland’s Second Fiscal Consolidation – Lessons from the Last Time
Full text linkFor the second time in a generation, Ireland is in a deep fiscal crisis, with double-digit borrowing, escalating debt and concerns about the country’s solvency in international debt markets, reflected in the largest adverse bond spreads of any Eurozone member. What’s different this time is that the fiscal system’s second crisis since the foundation of the state has coincided with the banking system’s first. The banks have lost a large portion (on worst estimates, all) of their capital and survive on liquidity furnished, on a prodigious scale, by the European Central Bank. Parallels with the first Irish fiscal crisis in the 1980s are of limited value given the quite different circumstances. The next section argues that fiscal consolidation post-1987 was less daunting than is likely to be the case over the next few years, and that the role of expenditure cuts under the first Bord Snip has been exaggerated in journalistic renderings of the history of the period. The deterioration in the public finances has been extraordinarily rapid – even with substantial tax rate increases, revenue has fallen far more rapidly than the tax base, while spending has continued to advance, despite the widespread perception of cutbacks. The conduct of fiscal policy since 2000 is reviewed in section three, and the prospects for a medium-term fiscal consolidation in section four. The paper concludes with some lessons from Irish experience for politicians - and for economists.Crisis, Consolidation, Lessons
- …
