"Compares financial sector reforms and their impact on economic growth and stability in selected countries of Latin America and Asia. Articles range from the quite specific (e.g., securities regulation in Thailand), to more general"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 57.

Soon after its declaration of independence, Lithuania launched a program of market-based economic reforms that achieved remarkable results. However, a banking crisis erupted in January 1996, driven by a combination of ineffective bank supervision, poor bank practices, and deep-rooted sectoral imbalances. With financial support from the World Bank, Lithuanian authorities embarked on a broad economic reform program with two immediate objectives: the resolution of the banking system's operational and undercapitalization problems, and a reduction in the most severe imbalances in the economy. Volume I (see ordering information below) distills findings and conclusions and builds a policy action plan for fast stable growth. Volume II contains a collection of twelve policy notes that provide the technical analysis behind that plan. Also available: Volume II/Analytical Backgroung(ISBN 0-8213-4327-0) Stock no. 14327.

Financial sector liberalization can spur economic growth and development, but reforms to liberalize the financial sector can also entail risks if they are not properly designed and implemented. One of the central questions for countries reforming their financial systems is how to sequence the reforms so as to maximize the benefits of liberalization and contain its risks. Edited by R. Barry Johnston and V. Sundararajan of the IMF's Monetary and Exchange Affairs Department, this book attempts to answer this and related questions by drawing lessons from financial sector reforms in selected countries. In particular, the book surveys financial sector reforms in Indonesia, Thailand, and Korea between the mid-1980s and mid-1990s.

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.

Public enterprise reform is more successful in countries whose financial systems are relatively well developed. Countries seeking to implement broad public enterprise reforms achieve greater success if they also implement substantial and well- designed financial reforms.

A Brookings Institution Press and Asian Development Bank Institute Although emerging economies as a group performed well during the global recession, weathering the recession better than advanced economies, there were sharp differences among them and across regions. The emerging economies of Asia had the most favorable outcomes, surviving the ravages of the global financial crisis with relatively modest declines in growth rates in most cases. China and India maintained strong growth during the crisis and played an important role in facilitating global economic recovery. In this informative volume, the second in a series on emerging markets, editors Masahiro Kawai and Eswar Prasad and the contributors analyze the major domestic macroeconomic and financial policy issues that could limit the growth potential of Asian emerging markets, such as rising inflation and surging capital inflows, with the accompanying risks of asset and credit market bubbles and of rapid currency appreciation. The book examines strategies to promote financial stability, including reforms for financial market development and macroprudential supervision and regulation.