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Implicit government guarantees to bail out troubled banks can produce a sizable fiscal contingent liability. Drawing on a rich history of various forms of staggered bailouts, this paper studies the link between bank bailouts and fiscal contingent liabilities using bank-level data for Kazakhstan—an upper-middle-income country in Central Asia. The paper first estimates the probability that a bank in distress is bailed out, conditioning on bank characteristics and financial soundness. Second, it estimates the magnitude of bailout costs depending on the size of banks, their ownership type, financial soundness, and the type of bailout instrument used by the government. The latter aims to contrast the fiscal contingent liabilities when the government uses bailout instruments without recourse on bank future profits—such as government purchases of bad loans at 100 percent nominal value—versus instruments that do not allow bank owners to socialize losses and privatize gains—such as properly governed and priced senior debt or equity injections. Third, the paper illustrates how the estimations could be used for projecting the expected contingent liabilities from bank bailouts.

We explore and summarize the evolution in bank capital regulations and bank risk after the global financial crisis. Using a new survey of bank regulation and supervision covering more than 120 economies, we show that regulatory capital increased, but some elements of capital regulations became laxer. Analyzing bank-level data, we also document the importance of defining bank regulatory capital narrowly as the quality of capital matters in reducing bank risk. This is particularly true for banks that have more discretion in the computation of regulatory capital ratios and are subject to weaker market monitoring.

This paper analyzes the relationship between financial structure and innovation. Analysis of cross-country micro data over 2009–18 shows that a firm’s financial sources matter for the choice to innovate and the extent to which a firm innovates. The relationship is stronger for firms relying on non-bank financial intermediaries and for firms in low-technology sectors. Moreover, the use of external sources of finance is associated with improved prospects of innovation, especially in more financially developed countries. These findings suggest that developing the financial sector can bring benefits in terms of innovation.

This paper introduces a new global database and a policy classification framework that records the financial sector policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic across 154 jurisdictions. It documents that authorities around the world have taken a diverse array of measures to mitigate financial distress in markets and for borrowers, and to support the provision of critical financial services to the real economy. Measures that focus on the banking sector constitute the majority of policies taken and aim to take advantage of the flexibility embedded in the international standards. However, emerging markets and developing economies tend to rely more on prudential measures that go beyond this embedded flexibility compared with advanced economies, which may reduce bank balance sheet transparency and increase risks. Using Cox proportional hazards and Poisson regressions, the paper takes initial steps to analyze the determinants of policy makers’ responsiveness and activity in emerging markets and developing economies, respectively. The results indicate that policy makers have typically been significantly more responsive and have taken more policy measures in emerging markets and developing economies that are richer and more populous. Countries with higher private debt levels tend to respond earlier with banking sector and liquidity and funding measures. The spread of COVID-19, macro-financial fundamentals, and fiscal and containment policies appear to play a limited role. In a substantially smaller sample, the paper explores the role of banking characteristics and finds that emerging markets and developing economies with higher private credit levels and that have adopted Basel III features have taken fewer policy measures. Future work is necessary for better understanding the country determinants of the policy response as well as the effectiveness and potential unintended consequences of the measures.

This paper examines changes in bank capital and capital regulations since the global financial crisis, in the Europe and Central Asia region. It shows that banks in Europe and Central Asia are better capitalized, as measured by regulatory capital ratios, than they were prior to the crisis. However, the increase in simple equity ratios for the same banks has been smaller over the past 10 years. The increases in regulatory capital ratios have coincided with a reduction in the stringency of the definition of Tier 1 capital and reduction in risk-weights. Further analyses show that bank risk in Europe and Central Asia is more sensitive to changes in simple leverage ratios than in regulatory capital ratios, consistent with the notion that equity ratios only include high-quality capital and do not rely on internal risk models to compute risk-weights. Although there has been some effort to increase capital and liquidity requirements for institutions deemed systemically important, the region has been lagging in addressing the resolution of these institutions.

This paper summarizes the latest update of the World Bank Bank Regulation and Supervision Survey. The paper explores and summarizes the evolution in bank capital regulations, capitalization of banks, market discipline, and supervisory power since the global financial crisis. It shows that regulatory capital increased, but some elements of capital regulations became laxer. Market discipline may have deteriorated as the financial safety nets became more generous after the crisis. Bank supervision became stricter and more complex compared with the pre–global financial crisis period. However, supervisory capacity did not increase in proportion to the extent and complexity of new bank regulations. The paper documents the importance of defining bank regulatory capital narrowly, as the quality of capital matters in reducing bank risk. This is particularly true for large banks, because they have more discretion in the computation of risk weights and are better able to issue a variety of capital instruments.

This paper introduces key findings from a new cross-country survey on state-owned financial institutions in Europe and Central Asia. It covers 41 such institutions operating in the region as of end 2016, and considers variables in the areas of mandates, instruments, performance, governance, and monitoring/evaluation. It presents results over the period following the global financial crisis up to 2015, distinguishes between state-owned commercial and development financial institutions, and looks at differences among three geographical sub-regions.

Policy makers and regulators have devoted much effort to reforms aimed at improving financial stability in response to lessons from the 2007-09 crisis. At the same time, much effort has also been directed to promoting greater financial inclusion as an enabler of equal opportunity. To some extent, these endeavors have been exerted in silos, neglecting the possibility that financial inclusion and financial stability could be significantly intertwined, positively or negatively. If there are synergies or trade-offs between inclusion and stability, policy decisions must be informed, and the policy setting, design, and implementation adjusted accordingly. This paper (i) discusses the relationship between financial inclusion and stability, (ii) illustrates empirically interactions between the two financial sector outcomes, and (iii) outlines policy challenges stemming from these interactions.