Regulatory strategies that make sense for industrial countries may not be transferable, unchanged, to developing countries. But developing countries could clearly benefit from reformed supervisory technology, including improved information collection and management.

Explicit deposit insurance has been spreading rapidly in recent years, even to countries with low levels of financial and institutional development. Economic theory indicates that deposit-insurance design features interact--for good or ill--with country-specific elements of the financial and governmental contracting environment. This paper documents the extent of cross-country differences in deposit-insurance design and reviews empirical evidence on how particular design features affect private market discipline, banking stability, financial development, and the effectiveness of crisis resolution. This evidence challenges the wisdom of encouraging countries to adopt explicit deposit insurance without first stopping to assess and remedy weaknesses in their informational and supervisory environments.

Ch. 1. Value-at-risk disclosures and the implications on bank stakeholders / Jason Ball and Victor Fang -- ch. 2. Ex-ante versus ex-post regulation of bank capital / Arup Daripa and Simone Varotto -- ch. 3. Effects of international interbank loans on twin crises / Erhan Uluceviz and Levent Yildiran -- ch. 4. International transmission effects of volatility between financial markets in the G-7 since the introduction of the Euro / Lucia Morales -- ch. 5. Country-of-origin determinants of value creation in international joint ventures : a comparison of Hong Kong and U.S. investments in China / Usha R. Mittoo, Dennis Chung and Zhou Zhang -- ch. 6. Maturity transformation strategies and interest rate risk of financial institutions : evidence from the German market / Hendrik Scholz, Stephan Simon and Marco Wilkens -- ch. 7. Asymmetries in the market price of risk : evidence from Latin America / Gokce Soydemir, Rahul Verma and Jose Moreno -- ch. 8. Corporate governance institutions as signaling and commitment devices / Angelo Baglioni -- ch. 9. Managing the costs of issuing common equity : the role of registration choice / Jennifer E. Bethel and Laurie Krigman -- ch. 10. The impact of arrangers and buyout sponsors on loan pricing in LBOs : a cross border study / Kenneth Daniels and Irwin Morgan -- ch. 11. Ownership control and valuation changes for earning announcements around U.S. Cross-listings by Canadian firms / Lawrence Kryzanowski and Arturo Rubalcava -- ch. 12. Analysis of the investment potential and inflation-hedging ability of precious metals / James R. McCown and John R. Zimmerman -- ch. 13. Corporate governance and ownership structure in emerging markets : evidence from Latin America / Diego Cueto -- ch. 14. Asymmetric impact of news on stock return volatility / Joon-Young Song