In this paper, we introduce the first comprehensive database on sovereign debt systematically compiled to ensure comparability, for all countries in the Americas, and use this new data to highlight the main stylized facts regarding sovereign debt for developing America in the last two decades....

Using an optimizing model we compare alternative monetary policy rules and exchange rate regimes for a small stochastic open economy with imperfect competition and short run price rigidity. The criteria to choose among rules and regimes are obtained using a welfare criterion derived from the...

Several East Asian countries suffered a sudden stop, with massive and unexpected capital outflows, in 1997-98. Latin American countries, in spite of their more checketed financial past, were much less severely hit at the time (of course, several have had crises since). Why this asymmetry between...

Original sin, coupled with other financial imperfections, causes macroeconomic penance of two kinds: adverse shocks have larger and more persistent effects and monetary policy becomes less effective as a shock absorber. But macroeconomic damnation is not inevitable: in some cases, suitable...