Doing Business in Egypt 2008 covers three topics at the sub national level: starting a business, dealing with licenses and registering property. These indicators have been selected because they cover areas of local jurisdiction and... more
Doing Business in Egypt 2008 covers three topics at the sub national level: starting a business, dealing with licenses and registering property. These indicators have been selected because they cover areas of local jurisdiction and practice. In the last two years, doing business in Egypt has become more affordable the minimum capital required to start a business and the costs of registering property and dealing with licenses have been slashed. Doing Business in Egypt 2008 records all procedures required for a business in the construction industry to build a standardized warehouse. Doing Business in Egypt 2008 records the full sequence of procedures necessary when a business purchases land and a building to transfer the property title from another business so that the buyer can use the property for expanding its business, as collateral in taking new loans or, if necessary, to sell to another business. The ease of doing business index is limited in scope. The Doing Business indicators...
This paper assesses the sustainability of public debt in Egypt in light of recent fiscal trends. It discusses different estimates of the public debt in Egypt, analyzes key fiscal trends underlying recent growth in the public debt,... more
This paper assesses the sustainability of public debt in Egypt in light of recent fiscal trends. It discusses different estimates of the public debt in Egypt, analyzes key fiscal trends underlying recent growth in the public debt, explores whether these trends are structural or cyclical, and simulates debt-output trajectories based on alternative assumptions about key macroeconomic variables. The paper arrives at four main conclusions. First, Egypt presently has a high debt-output ratio relative to its comparators among lower middle-income countries. Second, the debt is being driven by structural factors rather than by cyclical ones. Third, the structural weaknesses of the budget are mainly related to low tax buoyancy and yields as well as to rising wage, subsidy and interest payment expenditures. Finally, simulation results show that both fiscal adjustment and economic growth would help restrain debt growth and achieve sustainability. In this respect, a desirable strategy would be ...
Abstract: Although Kenya's financial system is by far the largest and most developed in East Africa and its stability has improved significantly over the past years, many challenges remain. This paper assesses the stability,... more
Abstract: Although Kenya's financial system is by far the largest and most developed in East Africa and its stability has improved significantly over the past years, many challenges remain. This paper assesses the stability, efficiency, and outreach of Kenya's banking system, using aggregate, bank-level, and survey data. Banks' asset quality and liquidity positions have improved, making the system more resistant to shocks, and interest rate spreads have declined, in part due to reduction in the overhead costs of foreign banks. ...
We show that loan origination time is crucial for bank lending standards over the credit cycle, as well as for ex-post loan-level defaults and bank-level failures. We use the credit register in Spain for the business loans over the... more
We show that loan origination time is crucial for bank lending standards over the credit cycle, as well as for ex-post loan-level defaults and bank-level failures. We use the credit register in Spain for the business loans over the 2002-15 period focusing on the time of a loan application and its granting. First, when VIX is low (proxying for good times) banks shorten the time to originate a loan, particularly to less-capitalized (riskier) firms. Results suggest that bank moral hazard incentives are a key mechanism. Shorter loan origination time to ex-ante riskier firms in good times is especially stronger for: (i) banks with less capital (proxying for moral hazard problems between bank owners and taxpayers/debtholders); (ii) non-listed banks (proxying for moral hazard problems between bank management and shareholders); (iii) loans to firms in geographical areas which do not form the bank’s main market and experience a real estate bubble (proxying for moral hazard problems between local loan officers and the bank headquarter), mainly if those areas have more bank competition; or, relatedly, stronger effects on loans granted to firms operating in industries which the bank is not most specialized at (proxying for moral hazard problems between
different parts within the bank). Second, shorter loan origination time is associated with higher ex-post defaults at the loan-level, and aggregated at the bank-level, with higher likelihood of bank failure or other strong bank distress events, overall consistent with lower screening (time).
As the ongoing court battle between the Republic of Argentina and NML Capital, Ltd. illustrates, the meaning of pari passu in sovereign debt contracts remains highly contested. This article presents what might be the clearest historical... more
As the ongoing court battle between the Republic of Argentina and NML Capital, Ltd. illustrates, the meaning of pari passu in sovereign debt contracts remains highly contested. This article presents what might be the clearest historical evidence of what the pari passu clause was understood to mean in the pre-war period. It examines Nazi Germany’s defaults of the Dawes and Young Loans during the 1930s. According to this historical evidence, the parties believed that the clause promised parity in payment across different creditor groups (in this context, the various tranches representing nationals of different countries) considered to be part of the same general undertaking. This article reports no evidence to support what may be the most commonly offered interpretation for the clause today — that the pari passu clause was intended to prohibit the sovereign from passing laws that would have the effect of involuntarily subordinating certain creditors. This article also finds no evidence to suggest that the pari passu clause was understood as entitling the aggrieved creditor to a unilateral right to block payments to bondholders who assented to a government’s restructuring proposal.
Models of speech production differ on whether phonological neighbourhoods should affect processing, and on whether effects should be facilitatory or inhibitory. Inhibitory effects of large neighbourhoods have been argued to underlie... more
Models of speech production differ on whether phonological neighbourhoods should affect processing, and on whether effects should be facilitatory or inhibitory. Inhibitory effects of large neighbourhoods have been argued to underlie apparent anti-frequency effects, whereby high-frequency default features are more prone to mispronunciation errors than low-frequency nondefault features. Data from the original SLIPs experiments that found apparent anti-frequency effects are analysed for neighbourhood effects. Effects are facilitatory: errors are significantly less likely for words with large numbers of neighbours that share the characteristic that is being primed for error ("friends"). Words in the neighbourhood that do not share the target characteristic ("enemies") have little effect on error rates. Neighbourhood effects do not underlie the apparent anti-frequency effects. Implications for models of speech production are discussed.
The self-help group (SHG) model is the dominant form of microfinance in India. SHGs have grown explosively in recent years. It is reported that by March 2006, 2.23 million SHGs were reaching about 33 million members. Such outreach appears... more
The self-help group (SHG) model is the dominant form of microfinance in India. SHGs have grown explosively in recent years. It is reported that by March 2006, 2.23 million SHGs were reaching about 33 million members. Such outreach appears to represent a major breakthrough in a country where 50 million households live in poverty, with very limited access to financial services. This occasional paper reports on two separate studies of SHG programs conducted by Consultative Group to Assist the Poorest (CGAP) staff and partners. In part one, Jennifer Isern, L. B. Prakash, Anuradha Pillai, and Syed Hashemi review SHGs developed by five different self-help promotion institutions (SHPIs), representing the main approaches to SHG promotion in India. The study looks primarily at the financial viability of these SHG programs. The study reported in part two was done by Robert Peck Christen and Gautam Ivatury for a leading commercial bank in India. This study proposes a methodology for designing ...
The authors tested two interventions to improve retirement savings investment decisions. In an incentive‐compatible experiment, 459 participants engaged in a task simulating their working life. Periodically during the simulation,... more
The authors tested two interventions to improve retirement savings investment decisions. In an incentive‐compatible experiment, 459 participants engaged in a task simulating their working life. Periodically during the simulation, participants chose between different investment options. The authors examined the effectiveness of a “nudge” by manipulating the default option and the effectiveness of a “signpost” by manipulating the display of a pictograph summarizing the expected return of each option. Participants often followed the default option, particularly when it was “smart” (i.e., became more conservative as retirement approached) and when presented together with dynamic pictographs (i.e., updated each year assuming the investment was held until retirement). Those most likely to make optimal choices (i.e., consistent with the life cycle model) were presented with a smart default or dynamic pictographs. These findings reveal how different choice architecture interventions can be used to positively influence behavior. Retirement funds and regulators can support retirement savings decisions by the provision of smart defaults and better risk information in the form of pictographs.
Abstract: Although Kenya's financial system is by far the largest and most developed in East Africa and its stability has improved significantly over the past years, many challenges remain. This paper assesses the stability,... more
Abstract: Although Kenya's financial system is by far the largest and most developed in East Africa and its stability has improved significantly over the past years, many challenges remain. This paper assesses the stability, efficiency, and outreach of Kenya's banking system, using aggregate, bank-level, and survey data. Banks' asset quality and liquidity positions have improved, making the system more resistant to shocks, and interest rate spreads have declined, in part due to reduction in the overhead costs of foreign banks. ...
