Meditations and Learnings

Meditations and Learnings

There Are Rarely Shortcuts in the Economy

Building the necessary experience, reputation, and legal infrastructure to successfully run a bank takes time. A country unprepared for financial institutions will not benefit from them as might be expected. For example, Albania could not gain from the introduction of banks as those banks were unwilling to loan money because the legal infrastructure was too weak to instil confidence. The bank subsequently lost out on the gains from the interest on the loans. Instead, they opted to buy government securities and earn a low but dependent return rate. Albania’s legal system had yet to adapt to a market economy after decades of Communist economic and political regime.