Reforming Financial Systems
Historical Implications for Policy

This volume summarizes the key lessons of financial history for emerging market and developing economies.

Gerard Caprio, Jr. (Edited by), Dimitri Vittas (Edited by)

9780521032810, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 25 January 2007

236 pages, 14 b/w illus. 20 tables
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.358 kg

'Reforming Financial Systems by Gerard Caprio and Dimitri Vittas is an extraordinary compendium of different historical experiences with the development and regulation of the financial system. It genuinely delivers on the promise of one of its chapter titles: it provides important lessons from the past for present-day financial reforms.' Bruce Smith, University of Texas, Austin

This volume summarizes the key lessons of financial history for emerging markets and developing economies today, including the rise and role of central banks, debates on how to make banking secure and sound, the relative efficiency of universal banking compared to the Anglo-American commercial banking model, and the role of savings banks, non-banks and securities markets in development. Two lessons that should be kept in mind in reforming financial systems are the importance of incentives and diversification. Robust financial systems require incentive systems that reward prudent risk-taking and encourage sound portfolio diversification. In addition, reputation has proved to be important: central bankers must demonstrate anew why they have earned a reputation for non-inflationary policies, and private intermediaries must similarly demonstrate again why they have earned a reputation for sound, as opposed to Ponzi, finance. Attempts to reform financial systems without due allowance for the time and effort to develop institutions, including reputation, are likely to prove short-lived.

List of contributors
1. Financial history: lessons of the past for reformers of the present Gerard Caprio Jr. and Dimitri Vittas
2. The evolution of central banking Forrest Capie
3. Free banking: the Scottish experience as a model for emerging economies Randall S. Kroszner
4. Regulation and bank stability: Canada and the United States, 1870–1980 Michael Bordo
5. Deposit insurance Eugene White
6. Contingent liability in banking: useful policy for developing countries? Anthony Saunders and Berry Wilson
7. Universal banking and the financing of industrial development Charles W. Calomiris
8. Before main banks: a selective historical overview of Japan's prewar financial system Frank Packer
9. Thrift deposit institutions in Europe and the United States Dimitri Vittas
10. The development of industrial pensions in the United States during the twentieth century Samuel H. Williamson
11. The rise of securities markets: what can government do? Richard Sylla
Index.

Subject Areas: Economics [KC]