Robert Cull is Research Manager and Lead Economist in the Finance and Private Sector Development Team of the World Bank's Development Research Group. His most recent research is on the performance of microfinance institutions, African financial development, Chinese financial development and firm performance, and the effects of the global financial crisis on foreign banks and on bank regulation and supervision in developing economies. He has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed academic journals including in the Economic Journal, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Law and Economics, and the Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking. The author or editor of multiple books, his most recent co-edited book, “Banking the World: Empirical Foundations of Financial Inclusion” was published by MIT Press January, 2013. He is also co-editor of the Interest Bearing Notes, a bi-monthly newsletter reporting on financial and private sector research.