Structural Reforms In Industry Banking And Finance

The year 1991 marked an important watershed in the economic history of post-Independent India. The country went through a severe economic crisis triggered by a serious balance of payments situation. The crisis was converted into an opportunity to introduce some fundamental changes in the content and approach to economic policy. The purpose of this book is to detail the structural reform process undertaken by India and to evaluate its results. In the post-liberalization period, the country has moved to a higher growth path. Objective conditions exist for the economy to grow at a sustained rate of seven per cent. The slow growth in agriculture and the consequent impact of a slower decline in poverty reduction are areas of concern.

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 problem of banks being 'too big to fail' was the defining regulatory issue of the global financial crisis. However, attempts to tackle the problem by separating retail banking from higher risk trading activities - known as structural reform - proved to be highly divisive and contributed to significant regulatory divergence. In this book, David Howarth and Scott James explain this variation by examining the politics of bank structural reform across six key jurisdictions: the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. Integrating political economy and public policy approaches, they develop a novel 'comparative financial power' framework to analyse how financial industry influence is mediated by two factors: first, whether bank lobbying is unified and centralized (cooperative financial power) or divided and fragmented (competitive financial power); and second, policy makers' use of venue shifting to depoliticize contentious policy issues. The book explains that the US and UK governments implemented major reforms because the banking industry was divided and faced significant opposition. However, venue shifting to an independent committee led to durable reform in the UK, while political polarization in the US contributed to contested reform. By contrast, the French and German governments balanced unified bank lobbying and political pressures to act by pursuing limited symbolic reforms; the Dutch government deflected the issue through delegation to multiple commissions (no reform); while political stalemate at the EU level resulted from early venue shifting and concerted pan-European bank lobbying. The book makes a major contribution to scholarship on the political economy of finance and business power.

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.

As a companion piece to the Board paper on Structural Reforms and Macroeconomic Performance: Initial Considerations for the Fund, this paper presents a selection of case studies on the structural reform experiences of member countries. These papers update the Board on work since the Triennial Surveillance Review toward strengthening the Fund’s capacity to analyze and, where relevant, offer policy advice on macro-relevant structural issues. The paper builds on the already considerable analytical work underway across the Fund, setting out considerations to support a more strategic approach going forward.

This paper reviews key areas of central banking reform in a sample of centrally planned economies undergoing transition to market-based systems. The discussion draws mainly on the experiences of four countries, Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and China. Significant efforts have been made, or are under consideration, in all countries to develop a more efficient framework for monetary management, and to provide greater autonomy to central banks in macro stabilization policies. These objectives call for a coordinated approach to strengthening a wide range of central banking functions simultaneously, and require that a core mass of supporting financial sector reforms be implemented to ensure effective transformation and stabilization with minimal transitional costs.

This report summarizes the papers and associated discussion presented at the Senior Policy Seminar held in Santiago, Chile between 25th and 28th of May, 1992. The seminar involved ministers, central bank governors and senior officials from several Latin American and Asian economies as well as several representatives of international organizations. The central purpose of the seminar was to comparatively assess the wide range of country experiences with financial reform in the two regions, with a view to distilling general lessons. The materials presented were oriented mainly around the diverse experiences of financial policy formulation and implementation during the 1980s and early 1990s. These materials supported discussion of a variety of subthemes, including the management of financial crises, the interaction of financial liberalization with more general economic reforms, the industrial policy aspects of financial reform, and the roles of governments in stimulating the development of specific types of financial markets and institutions. The presentation during the four days included country papers as well as a variety of more general and synoptic papers included in this publication.

For the large number of developing countries undergoing significant structural transformations, one of the most important and controversial adjustment areas is that of the financial markets. Focusing on the role of the institutional and enabling environment within which financial reform occurs and on the integration of principles of finance with more macroeconomic approaches to the subject, the book contains case studies of reform experiences in Argentina, India, Nigeria, Turkey and Uruguay. Themes studied include the 'go slow' versus 'big bang' approach and the particular problem of bank-firm inter-linkages in Eastern Europe.