© 1998 International Monetary Fund

Cover design and composition:

Massoud Etemadi, Julio Prego, and the IMF Graphics Section

ISBN 9781557757395

ISSN 1020-5098

Published April 1998

To order IMF publications, please contact:

International Monetary Fund, Publication Services

700 19th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20431, U.S.A.

Tel: (202) 623-7430 Telefax: (202) 623-7201

E-mail: publications@imf.org

Internet: http://www.imf.org

Preface

The Economic Issues series aims to make available to a broad readership of nonspecialists some of the economic research being produced on topical issues by the staff of the IMF. The raw material of the series is drawn mainly from IMF Working Papers, technical papers produced by IMF staff members and visiting scholars, as well as from policy-related research papers.

This Economic Issue draws on material originally contained in IMF Working Paper 97/161, “Lessons from Systemic Bank Restructuring: A Survey of 24 Countries,” by Claudia Dziobek and Ceyla Pazarbaşioğlu. It also draws on a chapter by the same authors, “Lessons and Elements of Best Practice,” from an IMF book, Systemic Bank Restructuring and Macroeconomic Policy, edited by William E. Alexander, Jeffrey M. Davis, Liam P. Ebrill, and Carl-Johan Lindgren. The current version was partially redrafted and edited by Charles S. Gardner. Readers may purchase the book ($23.50) and the Working Paper ($7.00) from IMF Publication Services, or view the latter in full text on the IMF’s website (http://www.imf.org).