How Interest Rates Changed under Financial Liberalization A Cross-Country Review

April 2000 - As financial liberalization progressed, the general level of real interest rates increased more in developing countries than it did in industrial countries. Volatility in wholesale interest rates also jumped, often markedly, in most liberalizing countries. Treasury bill rates and bank s...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Honohan, Patrick
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Washington, D.C The World Bank 1999
Subjects:
Online Access:
Collection: World Bank E-Library Archive - Collection details see MPG.ReNa
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245 0 0 |a How Interest Rates Changed under Financial Liberalization  |h Elektronische Ressource  |b A Cross-Country Review  |c Honohan, Patrick 
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300 |a 56 p. 
653 |a Macroeconomics and Economic Growth 
653 |a Real Interest Rates 
653 |a Financial Literacy 
653 |a Currencies and Exchange Rates 
653 |a Bank Interest Rates 
653 |a Treasury 
653 |a Real Interest 
653 |a Lending 
653 |a Emerging Markets 
653 |a Developing Country 
653 |a Treasury Bill Rates 
653 |a Asset Prices 
653 |a Treasury Bill 
653 |a Bank Lending 
653 |a Interest Rates 
653 |a Interest 
653 |a Depos Developing Countries 
653 |a Debt Markets 
653 |a Financial Liberalization 
653 |a Private Sector Development 
653 |a Interest Rate 
653 |a Finance and Financial Sector Development 
653 |a Economic Theory and Research 
653 |a Market Interest Rates 
653 |a Bank Spreads 
653 |a Insurance and Risk Mitigation 
653 |a Borrowers 
653 |a Macroeconomic Management 
653 |a Money Market 
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520 |a April 2000 - As financial liberalization progressed, the general level of real interest rates increased more in developing countries than it did in industrial countries. Volatility in wholesale interest rates also jumped, often markedly, in most liberalizing countries. Treasury bill rates and bank spreads showed the greatest increase in developing countries, shifting substantial rents from the public sector and from favored borrowers. Financial liberalization was expected to make interest rates and asset prices more volatile, with distributional consequences such as reduced or relocated rents and increased competition in financial services. Honohan examines available data on money market and bank interest rates for evidence of whether these things happened. He shows that as more and more countries liberalized, the level and dynamic behavior of developing-country interest rates converged to industrial-country norms. In the short term, volatility increased in both real and nominal money market interest rates. Treasury bill rates and bank spreads, evidently the most repressed, showed the greatest increase as liberalization progressed - shifting substantial rents from the public sector and from favored borrowers. Whereas quoted bank spreads in industrial countries contracted somewhat in the late 1990s, spreads in developing countries remained much higher, presumably reflecting both market power and the higher risks of lending in the developing world. There was no clear-cut change in mean rates of inflation, monetary depth, or GDP growth. If anything, there was a small average improvement in inflation, but a decline in monetary depth and economic growth, relative to trends in industrial countries. This paper - a product of Finance, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to explore optimal policy under financial liberalization. The author may be contacted atphonohan@worldbank.org