The Argentine crisis witnessed, among other things, a deposit run, the suspension of deposit convertibility, and a "boom" in the stock market. The authors argue that this boom reflects the cost that depositors were willing to incur to get their money out of the banking system, in light of the impending risks. This boom was generalized to all stocks and more pronounced in liquid stocks. Furthermore, the boom was a symptom that deposits were effectively restricted and that investors were not able to circumvent capital controls. This paper--a product of Macroeconomics and Growth, Development Research Group--is part of a larger effort in the group to understand financial crises.

The Argentine crisis witnessed, among other things, a deposit run, the suspension of deposit convertibility, and a boom in the stock market. We argue that this boom reflects the cost that depositors were willing to incur to get their money out of the banking system, in light of the impending risks. This boom was generalized to all stocks and more pronounced in liquid stocks. Furthermore, the boom was a symptom that deposits were effectively restricted and that investors were not able to circumvent capital controls.

"The authors argue that the cross-market premium (the ratio between the domestic and the international market price of cross-listed stocks) provides a valuable measure of international financial integration, reflecting accurately the factors that segment markets and inhibit price arbitrage. Applying to equity markets recent methodological developments in the purchasing power parity literature, they show that nonlinear Threshold Autoregressive (TAR) models properly capture the behavior of the cross market premium. The estimates reveal the presence of narrow non-arbitrage bands and indicate that price differences outside these bands are rapidly arbitraged away, much faster than what has been documented for good markets. Moreover, the authors find that financial integration increases with market liquidity. Capital controls, when binding, contribute to segment financial markets by widening the non-arbitrage bands and making price disparities more persistent. Crisis episodes are associated with higher volatility, rather than by more persistent deviations from the law of one price. "--World Bank web site.

The World Bank's research is intended to address critical issues and problems facing member governments in developing and transition economies. How can the governments of the poorest countries generate enough revenue to provide the education and health services essential to reducing poverty and promoting growth and development? How can poor countries attract investors to build the infrastructure their economies need? How can they develop systems to bring clean water to the 2 billion people without it today? How can they train teachers and bring to class the 115 million children who have not yet received any education? And how can rich countries be persuaded to lower market barriers, helping to reverse the decline in export prices for poor countries that has left them earning less from trade today than in the 1970s? These are the types of questions that are addressed in this edition of 'The World Bank Research Program: Abstracts from Current Studies'. This volume reports on research projects initiated, under way, or completed from July 2003 through June 2004. It covers 151 research projects on several broad development related issues, including agriculture, health, education, environment, infrastructure, investment climate, and more. The abstract for each project describes the questions addressed, the analytic methods used, the findings to date, and policy implications.

Money and Financial Systems by Dr. V. C. Sinha and Dr. J. C. Varshney is a publication of SBPD Publishing House, Agra. This book is addressed to the students of monetary economics. Much of the discussion in the book relates to the financial institutions, theory of money and credit supply and monetary and credit policy. In the 1990’s, the economic reforms were started in the Indian economy and financial sector reforms were the key to these reforms. Therefore, in the past one decade or more, the financial sector in India has undergone historical changes. The authors have tried to incorporate all those changes in the book and have given the latest picture of the financial sector to the students.

This semiannual journal from the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association (LACEA) provides a forum for influential economists and policymakers to share high-quality research directly applied to policy issues within and among those countries.Contents Include:• The Impact of the Basel Accord on Bank Credit Growth: A Cross-Country Study Ralph Chami and Adolfo Barajas (IMF) and Thomas Cosimano (University of Notre Dame•Distributional Effects of Crises: The Financial Channel Marina Halac and Sergio L. Schmukler (World Bank)•Growth and Adjustment in East Asia and Latin America José De Gregorio (Banco Central de Chile) and Jong-Wha Lee (Korea University)• Labor Market Adjustment in Chile Kevin Cowan, Alejandro Micco, and Carmen Pages (IADB)•A Menu of Minimum Wage Variables for Evaluating Wage and Employment Effects: Evidence from Brazil Sara Lemos (University of Leicester)