Over the last two decades, both developed and developing countries have endured severe banking crises. The U.S. savings and loans (S&Ls) debacle in the 1980s, the chilean banking crisis in the 1980s, the Argentine and Mexsican crises in the mid-1980s and 1990s, as well as the recent financial turmoil ...

There is likely to be little disagreement with the observation that political interference has exacerbated the problems associated with bank insolvencies. Nevertheless, most ot the analytical attention given to bank crises has focused on technocratic mistakes (inappropriate regulatory choices), exogenous ...

The unprecedented number of costly bank failures throughout the world in the last two decades of the twentieth century has focused attention on the need to determine more appropriate ways to improve the performance of countries financial systems. Indeed, a substantial literature is already emerging ...

During the late 1980s, Japanese banks substantially increased their global presence. In part the expansion was undertaken to help service Japanese companies that were increasingly involved in foreign direct investment. However, this expansion also can be attibuted to Japan's positio as the world's ...