Several European countries face challenges reminiscent of those faced by the emerging economies of Latin America. The economic booms in some peripheral Euro-zone countries financed by large capital inflows; the credit and asset price booms and then the busts including Sudden Stops in capital...

The rise and fall of Argentina´s currency board illustrates the extent to which the advantages of hard pegs have been overstated. The currency board did provide nominal stability and boosted financial intermediation, at the cost of endogenous financial dollarization, but did not foster fiscal...

This paper investigates banking and sovereign distress in the Eurozone and the importance of direct and indirect financial exposures. We use BIS cross-border banking claims to link member states in a GVAR framework and jointly model sectoral CDS premia. Based on balance sheet positions of an...

This paper examines whether the composition of a country’s external liabilities and assets has an incidence on its risk of suffering financial turmoil. Particular emphasis is put on the role of international financial integration, using newly-constructed measures of contagion shocks. These new...

It is not easy to untangle the logic that in the past led to creation of the European Monetary Union (EMU) and that is currently guiding the prevailing Eurozone (EZ) policies. Although lacking the right institutions, which can be seen as the ultimate root of its crisis, the ten years of the EMU...

This paper studies the role of exit from a monetary union during a debt crisis. A monetary union, such as the European Monetary Union, needs to establish a procedure for exit as a tool to cope with debt default. The paper studies various forms of exit and argues that "Euroization" is both a...

This paper argues that if policymakers seek to enhance global liquidity, then the international community must provide a higher and better coordinated level of fiscal support than it has in the past. Loans to troubled sovereigns or financial institutions imply a credit risk that ultimately must...

This paper analyzes reforms and adjustments in the context of the Euro and the global financial crises. Taking the perspective of the evolutionary approach to institutions, the formation of a new currency area is not unidirectional. The process leading to the euro is an example of a common...

This paper examines Argentina´s currency crises from 1970 to 2001, with particular attention to the role of domestic and external factors. Using VAR estimations, we find that deteriorating domestic fundamentals matter. For example, at the core of the late 1980s crises was excessively loose...

We present a simple model of sovereign debt crises in which a country chooses its optimal mix of short and long-term debt contracts subject to standard contracting frictions: the country cannot commit to repay its debts nor to a specific path of future debt issues, and contracts cannot be made...