What idiosyncratic consumption risks can countries trade away on international asset markets? This paper develops an empirical methodology for answering the question. The tests are based on the proposition that in an integrated world asset market with representative national agents, the ex post...

This paper presents a long-run model of the open economy in a world of fixed exchange rates and imperfect substitutability between bonds denominated in different currencies. The model explicitly accounts for the wealth flow accompanying current-account imbalance and for the flow of interest...

This paper develops a dynamic framework in which macroeconomic liberalization and stabilization measures of the type recently seen in Latin America can be studied. The model is sufficiently general to cover both polar cases of a closed capital account and free private capital mobility, so the...

Once one recognizes that governments borrow international reserves and exercise other policy options to defend fixed exchange rates during currency crises, the question arises: What factors determine a government's decision to abandon a currency peg or hang on? In a setting of purposeful action...