A Cross-Country Analysis of the Bank Supervisory Framework and Bank Performance

by James R. Barth, Daniel E. Nolle, Triphon Phumiwasana, Glenn Yago

Abstract

Changes in the structure and nature of banking, as well as banking crises across the globe have focused the attention of policy makers on the appropriate structure, scope, and degree of independence of banking supervision. Key issues for banking supervision structure are whether there should be one or multiple supervisory authorities, and whether the central bank should be involved in bank supervision. The issue pertaining to the scope of supervision is whether bank supervisory authorities should supervise other financial service industries, including in particular securities and insurance. Finally, the issue regarding the independence of supervisory authorities is the degree to which bank supervisors should be subject to political and economic policy pressure and influence. How these issues are addressed is important, because policies that fail to provide for an appropriate bank supervisory framework may undermine bank performance and even lead to full-scale banking crises.

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Any whole or partial reproduction of material in this paper should include the following citation: James R. Barth, Daniel E. Nolle, Triphon Phumiwasana, Glenn Yago, "A Cross-Country Analysis of the Bank Supervisory Framework and Bank Performance, "Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, E&PA Working Paper 2002-2, September 2002.

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