Books in the World Bank/IMF/Brookings Emerging Markets series

Broad-based and inclusive financial systems significantly raise growth, alleviate poverty, and expand economic opportunity. Households, small enterprises, and the rural poor often have difficulty obtaining financial services for a multitude of reasons, including transaction costs, perceived risk, inadequate infrastructure, and information barriers.

Throughout the 1990s, numerous financial crises rocked the world financial sector. The Asian bubble burst, for example; Argentina and Brazil suffered currency crises; and the post-Soviet economy bottomed out in Russia.