Using Benford's law, we find evidence supporting the hypothesis that countries at times misreport their economic data strategically. We group countries with similar economic conditions and find that for countries with fixed exchange rate regimes, high negative net foreign asset positions,...

Several studies have suggested that the prediction of standard theory on the effects of monetary policy on the exchange rate might not be applicable to or in the case of the Republic of Korea because participation of foreign investors is weak in the bond market but strong in the stock market....

Like many other developing countries, South Asian nations have been experiencing increased foreign direct investment inflows over the past decade as developing countries get a larger share of cross-border investments that were once sent to developed countries. Nonetheless, South Asia’s...

Three main features characterize the international financial integration of China and India. First, while only having a small global share of privately-held external assets and liabilities (with the exception of China’s FDI liabilities), these countries are large holders of official reserves....

This paper describes the dynamics of the external positions of euro area countries since the formation of EMU. While external imbalances have been the main focus in recent times, current account balances can only be properly interpreted in the context of understanding the overall international...

During the last few decades, many emerging markets have lifted restrictions on cross-border financial transactions. The conventional view was that this would allow these countries to: (i) receive capital inflows from advanced countries that would finance higher investment and growth; (ii) insure...

This paper presents a model of financial resource curse, i.e. episodes of abundant access to foreign capital coupled with weak productivity growth. We study a two-sector, tradable and non-tradable, small open economy. The tradable sector is the engine of growth, and productivity growth is...

As a result of debt enforcement problems, many high-productivity firms in emerging economies are unable to pledge enough future profits to their creditors and this constrains the financing they can raise. Many have argued that, by relaxing these credit constraints, reforms that strengthen...

This paper provides an empirical investigation of the relationship between surges in capital inflows and the probability of subsequent banking, currency and balance-of-payment crises. Using a panel of developed and emerging economies from 1970 to 2007, it is shown that a large capital inflow...

Private capital movements have risen in recent decades, and bank flows have been part of this story. Some empirical studies have analysed the political drivers of private international liquidity, but paradoxically very few have looked at the political economy of bank flows. Even less research...