This book contains 21 papers focusing on a wide range of issues concerning financial sector transition in the countries of Europe and Central Asia (ECA). It places the transition economies in the context of recent and prospective developments in global financial markets. This book also evaluates the experience of the last 10 years and reviews the progress from a command financial system to a market-based one, identifying some of the key characteristics of the financial transition.

Staff Discussion Notes showcase the latest policy-related analysis and research being developed by individual IMF staff and are published to elicit comment and to further debate. These papers are generally brief and written in nontechnical language, and so are aimed at a broad audience interested in economic policy issues. This Web-only series replaced Staff Position Notes in January 2011.

Seventeen in a series of annual reports comparing business regulation in 190 economies, Doing Business 2020 measures aspects of regulation affecting 10 areas of everyday business activity.

In recent decades, a wide range of countries have experienced banking problems. Their approaches to systemic bank restructuring have varied substantially. This paper analyzes a representative sample of 24 countries and provides a summary of policies judged to be successful. The sample countries were ranked by relative progress in resolving banking sector problems. Based on this ranking, the paper examines the effectiveness of institutional and regulatory measures, assesses the impact of accompanying macroeconomic policies, and examines the extent to which particular restructuring instruments contributed to success. Special emphasis is given to the role of the central bank.

This volume examines the impact on economic performance of structural policies-policies that increase the role of market forces and competition in the economy, while maintaining appropriate regulatory frameworks. The results reflect a new dataset covering reforms of domestic product markets, international trade, the domestic financial sector, and the external capital account, in 91 developed and developing countries. Among the key results of this study, the authors find that real and financial reforms (and, in particular, domestic financial liberalization, trade liberalization, and agricultural liberalization) boost income growth. However, growth effects differ significantly across alternative reform sequencing strategies: a trade-before-capital-account strategy achieves better outcomes than the reverse, or even than a "big bang"; also, liberalizing the domestic financial sector together with the external capital account is growth-enhancing, provided the economy is relatively open to international trade. Finally, relatively liberalized domestic financial sectors enhance the economy's resilience, reducing output costs from adverse terms-of-trade and interest-rate shocks; increased credit availability is one of the key mechanisms.

The paper analyses the cost and effectiveness of bank restructuring policies in 11 transition countries during 1991-98. It argues that country-specific banking sector features, the size of bad loans inherited from the centrally planned system, and weaknesses in the restructuring policies implemented were the main factors affecting the overall fiscal costs, with the latter two being more significant. The paper finds no significant relationship between the size of restructuring costs and overall improvement in banking sector performance for the sample countries as a whole.