This paper seeks to draw lessons from the IMF’s experience in handling financial crises around the globe over the past ten years that are relevant to the challenges faced by countries in Latin America, especially in the wake of the recent crisis in Argentina. Experience suggests that...

We present a stylized framework which encompasses a variety of "balance sheet approaches" to currency crises that have been suggested in the literature, and analyze their policy implications. The common theme is that currency and maturity mismatches in private sector balance sheets constrain the...

We test the hypothesis of a link between exchange rate policy and sovereign bonds. We analyze the effect of exchange rate policies on supply and credit spreads of sovereign bonds issued by developing countries. An exchange rate policy is captured by the de facto exchange rate regime and the real...

Defending a government’s exchange-rate commitment with active interest rate policy is not an option in the Krugman-Flood-Garber (KFG) model of speculative attacks. In that model, the interest rate is the passive reflection of currency-depreciation expectations. In this paper we show how to...

This paper addresses the challenges to prudential supervision in highly dollarized economies, where central banks and supervisors may be constrained in the use of standard money and financial policy tools. The study’s conclusions are the basis of an ongoing policy dialogue with IMF member...

This paper compares the impact of shocks to U.S. interest rates and emerging market bond spreads on domestic interest rates and exchange rates across several emerging market economies with different exchange rate regimes. Consistent with conventional priors, the results indicate that interest...

We develop a simple framework for studying the joint distribution of banking and currency crises triggered by real shocks. Our framework illustrates the fact that bank and currency collapses are related but they are not the same thing. Studying currency and bank collapses either in isolation or...

We analyze the costs and benefits of full dollarization compared to its closest alternative, a currency board, quantifying for Argentina where possible. Potential advantages include lower borrowing costs and deeper integration into world markets. One cost is the transfer of seigniorage to the...

Using company-level data, this paper examines the relative stock-market performance of firms with different foreign-exchange exposures around the time of the 1994/95 Mexican crisis. Contrary to what one might have expected given the alleged peso overvaluation, exporting firms outperformed the...