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Although the worldwide growth in dollarization of bank deposits has recently slowed, it has already reached very high levels in dozens of countries. Building on earlier findings that allowed the main cross-country variations in the share of dollars to be explained in terms of national policies and institutions, this paper turns to analysis of short-run variations, particularly the response of dollarization to exchange rate changes, which is shown to be too small to warrant "fear of floating" by dollarized economies. But high dollarization is shown to increase the risk of depreciation and even suspension, as indicated by interest rate spreads. While specific policy is needed to deal with the risks associated with dollarization, the underlying causes of unwanted dollarization should also be tackled.

Bank Deposits --- Bank Policy --- Central Bank --- Central Banks --- Currencies and Exchange Rates --- Currency --- Debt Markets --- Depositors --- Emerging Markets --- Exchange --- Exchange Rate --- Exchange Rate Movements --- Exchange Rates --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Holding --- Inflation --- Interest --- Interest Rate --- Interest Rate Spreads --- Lender --- Lender of Last Resort --- Local Currency --- Options --- Private Sector Development --- Share

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This paper uses unique bank-by-bank balance sheet and income statement information to investigate the intermediation efficiency in the Nigerian pre-consolidated banking sector during 2000-05. The author analyzes whether the Central Bank of Nigeria's policy of recent banking consolidation can be justified and rationalized by looking at the determinants of spreads. A spread decomposition and panel estimations show that the reform of the banking sector could be the first step to raise the intermediation efficiency of the Nigerian banking sector. The author finds that larger banks have enjoyed lower overhead costs, increased concentration in the banking sector has not been detrimental to the spreads, both increased holdings of liquidity and capital might have led to lower spreads in 2005, and a stable macroeconomic environment is conducive to a more efficient channeling of savings to productive investments.

Access to Finance --- Bank balance sheet --- Bank Policy --- Bank Spreads --- Banking Sector --- Banks and Banking Reform --- Central Bank --- Debt Markets --- Economic Theory and Research --- Emerging Markets --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Holdings --- Liquidity --- Macroeconomic environment --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Overhead costs --- Private Sector Development --- Productive investments

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Although financial theory suggests a positive relationship between default risk and equity returns, recent empirical papers find anomalously low returns for stocks with high probabilities of default. The authors show that returns to distressed stocks previously documented are really an amalgamation of anomalies associated with three stock characteristics - leverage, volatility and profitability. In this paper they use a market based measure - corporate credit spreads - to proxy for default risk. Unlike previously used measures that proxy for a firm's real-world probability of default, credit spreads proxy for a risk-adjusted (or a risk-neutral) probability of default and thereby explicitly account for the systematic component of distress risk. The authors show that credit spreads predict corporate defaults better than previously used measures, such as, bond ratings, accounting variables and structural model parameters. They do not find default risk to be significantly priced in the cross-section of equity returns. There is also no evidence of firms with high default risk delivering anomalously low returns.

Accounting --- Bankruptcy --- Bankruptcy and Resolution of Financial Distress --- Bond ratings --- Bond Spread --- Capital Asset Pricing --- Corporate Bond --- Corporate bonds --- Corporate defaults --- Credit rating --- Credit risk --- Credit spread --- Credit spreads --- Debt --- Debt Markets --- Default Risk --- Deposit Insurance --- Economic Theory & Research --- Equity returns --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Fixed Income --- Human capital --- International Bank --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Mutual Funds --- Probability of default --- Stocks

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April 2000 - As financial liberalization progressed, the general level of real interest rates increased more in developing countries than it did in industrial countries. Volatility in wholesale interest rates also jumped, often markedly, in most liberalizing countries. Treasury bill rates and bank spreads showed the greatest increase in developing countries, shifting substantial rents from the public sector and from favored borrowers. Financial liberalization was expected to make interest rates and asset prices more volatile, with distributional consequences such as reduced or relocated rents and increased competition in financial services. Honohan examines available data on money market and bank interest rates for evidence of whether these things happened. He shows that as more and more countries liberalized, the level and dynamic behavior of developing-country interest rates converged to industrial-country norms. In the short term, volatility increased in both real and nominal money market interest rates. Treasury bill rates and bank spreads, evidently the most repressed, showed the greatest increase as liberalization progressed - shifting substantial rents from the public sector and from favored borrowers. Whereas quoted bank spreads in industrial countries contracted somewhat in the late 1990s, spreads in developing countries remained much higher, presumably reflecting both market power and the higher risks of lending in the developing world. There was no clear-cut change in mean rates of inflation, monetary depth, or GDP growth. If anything, there was a small average improvement in inflation, but a decline in monetary depth and economic growth, relative to trends in industrial countries. This paper - a product of Finance, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to explore optimal policy under financial liberalization. The author may be contacted atphonohan@worldbank.org.

Asset Prices --- Bank Interest Rates --- Bank Lending --- Bank Spreads --- Borrowers --- Currencies and Exchange Rates --- Debt Markets --- Depos Developing Countries --- Developing Country --- Economic Theory and Research --- Emerging Markets --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Financial Liberalization --- Financial Literacy --- Insurance and Risk Mitigation --- Interest --- Interest Rate --- Interest Rates --- Lending --- Macroeconomic Management --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Market Interest Rates --- Money Market --- Private Sector Development --- Real Interest --- Real Interest Rates --- Treasury --- Treasury Bill --- Treasury Bill Rates

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Multiple factors can directly influence the chemical composition of foods and, consequently, their organoleptic, nutritional, and bioactive properties, including their geographical origin, the variety or breed, as well as the conditions of cultivation, breeding, and/or feeding, among others. Therefore, there is a great interest in the development of accurate, robust, and high-throughput analytical methods to guarantee the authenticity and traceability of foods. For these purposes, a large number of sensorial, physical, and chemical approaches can be used, which must be normally combined with advanced statistical tools. In this vein, the aim of the Special Issue “Food Authentication: Techniques, Trends, and Emerging Approaches” is to gather original research papers and review articles focused on the development and application of analytical techniques and emerging approaches in food authentication. This Special Issue comprises 12 valuable scientific contributions, including one review article and 11 original research works, dealing with the authentication of foods with great commercial value, such as olive oil, Iberian ham, and fruits, among others.

minerals --- high-resolution mass spectrometry --- n/a --- lipids --- information sharing --- sweet cherries --- mineral elements --- stakeholder --- chemometrics --- food integrity --- food classification --- MALDI-MS imaging --- volatile compounds --- SNPs --- physicochemical quality parameters --- discrimination --- multivariate classification --- fingerprinting --- liquid chromatography fingerprinting --- food authentication --- cultivation system --- sugars --- biomarkers --- traceability --- free amino acids --- luminescence --- cultivar --- transparency --- prickly pear --- HPLC-UV --- differentiation --- amino acids --- phenolic compounds --- neuropeptides --- hen eggs --- food fraud --- gas chromatography --- organic acids --- Iberian dry-cured ham --- genetic tagging --- mass spectrometry --- food supply chain --- fruit juice authenticity --- authentication --- partial least square-discriminant analysis --- pattern recognition --- virgin olive oil --- nutrition factor --- adulteration --- vinegar --- polyphenolic compounds --- SSRs --- strawberry --- juice --- hazelnut oil --- DNA extraction protocol --- margarines and spreads --- pomegranate juice --- aroma --- principal component analysis