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When faced with financial crises, authorities worldwide tend to respond aggressively with public support measures. Given the adverse impact on moral hazard and market discipline, support measures involving public money are ideally limited to crisis situations involving systemic risk: a disturbance in the financial system that is serious enough to affect the real economy. This note sets out the main characteristics of a systemic risk assessment framework: a simple analytical framework that can be used by authorities with financial crisis management responsibilities in times of financial crisis to assess the extent to which that particular crisis situation poses systemic risk.

Access to information --- Bankruptcy and Resolution of Financial Distress --- Banks & Banking Reform --- Central banks --- Debt Markets --- Deposit --- Deposit insurance --- Depositors --- Emerging Markets --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Financial crises --- Financial crisis --- Financial infrastructure --- Financial institutions --- Financial Intermediation --- Financial shock --- Financial support --- Financial system --- Financial Systems --- International Bank --- Liquidity --- Market discipline --- Moral hazard --- Private Sector Development --- Public funds --- Solvency --- Supervisory agencies

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Critical appraisals of the current and potential benefits from developing country engagement in the World Trade Organization (WTO) focus mainly on the Doha Round of negotiations. This paper examines developing country participation in the WTO dispute settlement system to enforce foreign market access rights already negotiated in earlier multilateral rounds. The dispute data from 1995 through 2008 reveal three notable trends: developing countries' sustained rate of self-enforcement actions despite declining use of the Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) by developed countries, developing countries' increased use of the DSU to self-enforce their access to the markets of developing as well as developed country markets, and the prevalence of disputes targeting highly observable causes of lost foreign market access, such as antidumping, countervailing duties, and safeguards. The paper also examines potential impacts of the Advisory Centre on WTO Law (ACWL) into the WTO system in 2001. A close look at the data reveals evidence on at least three channels through which the ACWL may be enhancing developing countries' ability to self-enforce foreign market access: increased initiation of sole-complainant cases, more extensive pursuit of the DSU legal process for any given case, and initiation of disputes over smaller values of lost trade.

Country Strategy & Performance --- Debt Markets --- Developing countries --- Developing country --- Emerging Markets --- Exchange --- Exporters --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Financial support --- Foreign market --- Good --- Intellectual property --- Interest --- Interests --- International bank --- International Economics and Trade --- Law and Development --- Market access --- Markets --- Private Sector Development --- Property rights --- Regulatory barriers --- Settlement --- Settlement system --- Share --- Tariffs --- Trade Law --- Trading --- World Trade Organization

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Microfinance, the provision of small individual and business loans, has witnessed dramatic growth, reaching over 150 million borrowers worldwide. Much of its success has been attributed to overcoming the challenges of information asymmetries in uncollateralized lending. Yet, very little is known about the optimal contract structure of such loans - there is substantial variation across lenders, even within a particular setting. This paper exploits a plausibly exogenous change in the liability structure offered by a microfinance program in India, which shifted from individual to group liability lending. The analysis finds compelling evidence that contract structure matters: for the same borrower, required monthly loan installments are 6 percent less likely to be missed under the group liability setting, relative to individual liability. In addition, compulsory savings deposits are 19 percent less likely to be missed under group liability contracts.

Access to Finance --- Bankruptcy and Resolution of Financial Distress --- Borrower --- Collateral --- Commercial banks --- Debt Markets --- Deposit Insurance --- Emerging markets --- Expenditure --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Financial market --- Financial support --- Income inequality --- Information asymmetries --- International bank --- Lenders --- Liability --- Loan --- Microcredit --- Microfinance --- Optimal contract --- Provision of credit --- Savings deposits --- Transaction --- Transaction costs

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A potential concern with survey-based data on corruption is that respondents may not be fully candid in their responses to sensitive questions. If reticent respondents are less likely to admit to involvement in corrupt acts, and if the proportion of reticent respondents varies across groups of interest, comparisons of reported corruption across those groups can be misleading. This paper implements a variant on random response techniques that allows for identification of reticent respondents in the World Bank's Enterprise Survey for Nigeria fielded in 2008 and 2009. The authors find that 13.1 percent of respondents are highly likely to be reticent, and that these reticent respondents admit to sensitive acts at a significantly lower rate than possibly candid respondents when survey questions are worded in a way that implies personal wrongdoing on the part of the respondent.

Bankruptcy and Resolution of Financial Distress --- Bribe --- Bribes --- Business operations --- Corrupt --- Corrupt acts --- Corruption --- Corruption survey --- Corruption surveys --- E-Business --- Electronic device --- Enterprise survey --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Financial support --- Good governance --- Market share --- Private sector --- Private Sector Development --- Public officials --- Public Sector Corruption & Anticorruption Measures --- Public Sector Development --- Radio --- Results --- Social Accountability --- Social Analysis --- Social Development --- Uses --- Web

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Winning "hearts and minds" in the Muslim world is an explicitly acknowledged aim of U.S. foreign policy and increasingly, bilateral foreign aid is recognized as a vehicle towards this end. The authors examine the effect of aid from foreign organizations and on-the-ground presence of foreigners following the 2005 earthquake in Northern Pakistan on local attitudes. They show that four years after the earthquake, humanitarian assistance by foreigners and foreign organizations has left a lasting imprint on population attitudes. Measured in three different ways those living closer to the fault-line report more positive attitudes towards foreigners, including Europeans and Americans; trust in foreigners decreases 6 percentage points for every 10 Kilometers distance from the fault-line. In contrast, there is no association between distance to the fault-line and trust in local populations. Pre-existing differences in socioeconomic characteristics or population attitudes do not account for this finding. Instead, the relationship between trust in foreigners and proximity to the fault-line mirrors the greater provision of foreign aid and foreign presence in these villages. In villages closest to the fault-line, foreign organizations were the second largest providers of aid after the Pakistan army (despite reports to the contrary aid provision by militant organizations was extremely limited, with less than 1 percent of all respondents reporting any help from such organizations). The results provide a compelling case that trust in foreigners is malleable, responds to humanitarian actions by foreigners and is not a deep-rooted function of local preferences.

Ambassador --- Boundaries --- Conflict --- Conflict and Development --- Corporate Law --- Deaths --- Embassy --- Financial aid --- Financial support --- Foreign aid --- Foreign policy --- Foreigner --- Foreigners --- Frontier --- Hazard Risk Management --- Health, Nutrition and Population --- Humanitarian assistance --- International bank --- Law and Development --- Meeting --- Nations --- Population Policies --- Post Conflict Reconstruction --- Reconstruction --- Rehabilitation --- Roads --- Science and Technology Development --- Statistical & Mathematical Sciences --- Urban Development --- Violence