The Role Of Credit Markets In A Transition Economy With Incomplete Public Information

In this paper we explore some of the informational problems that constrain the development of credit markets in transition economies. We characterize investment patterns under uncertainty and high costs of entry, when agents learn about the ultimate value of enterprises through production in a Bayesian way. Inefficiencies due to the lack of public information reduce the average return to capital. Under asymmetric information, credit would go to activities that can provide enough co-finance. Credit markets may fail to develop for a while if there is not enough individual wealth to complement credit. Once they operate, credit markets may magnify distortions in equity markets, such as those due to spontaneous privatization. An argument for the sequencing of capital market liberalization is provided.

In this paper we explore some of the informational problems that constrain the development of credit markets in transition economies. We characterize investment patterns under uncertainty and high costs of entry, when agents learn about the ultimate value of enterprises through production in a Bayesian way. Inefficiencies due to the lack of public information reduce the average return to capital. Under asymmetric information, credit would go to activities that can provide enough co-finance. Credit markets may fail to develop for a while if there is not enough individual wealth to complement credit. Once they operate, credit markets may magnify distortions in equity markets, such as those due to spontaneous privatization. An argument for the sequencing of capital market liberalization is provided.

The object of this volume is to evaluate the pattern and the function of foreign capital in developing countries in a long-run perspective. The main conceptual instruments employed are the theory of economic growth, and the techniques associated with recent advances in growth econometrics. This empirical work points out that there is no mechanical trade-off between the short-term dangers and the long-run gains from capital market integration, but the growth benefits of foreign capital in transforming economies are conditional on an effective destination of the resources. Over-borrowing and excessive consumption are the main pitfalls in the short- as in the long-run. Nevertheless, foreign capital can be conducive to faster growth and possibly higher welfare.

External finance can provide a positive contribution to the transition process and can enhance welfare in former centrally planned economies, especially when domestic saving has not fully recovered after the initial contraction. However, as was pointed out at the beginning of the transition process, foreign debt could exert a strong constraint on the borrowing capacity of some central and eastern European countries. This paper analyzes the determinants of net external borrowing in ten transition economies during 1990-95 and assesses the impact of the outstanding stock of foreign liabilities on net financial inflows.

A selective index of major research papers prepared by IMF staff in 1991-98.

Chuluunbaatar Enkhzaya examines the "inadequate" behaviour of banks in Mongolia by analysing the institutional framework of the banking system, especially in lending. She focuses on the genesis of informal institutions of lending and their interaction with formal institutions of lending. Herewith, informal institutions such as the attitude to risk were indirectly observed by diagnosing the "action-regulating" knowledge of bankers. In order to ensure an effective allocation of the scarce financial resources of Mongolia the author therefore suggests a change - as simultaneous as possible - of formal and informal rules.