We present a framework that clarifies the financial role of the IMF, the rationale for conditionality, and the conditions under which IMF-induced moral hazard can arise. In the model, traditional conditionality commits country authorities to undertake crisis resolution efforts, facilitating the...

We estimate ex post returns to emerging market debt by combining secondary-market prices with observed flows based on World Bank data. From 1970–2000, returns averaged 9% per annum, about the same as returns on a ten-year US treasury bond. This reflects the combined effect of the 1980s debt...

Using industry-level data, this paper shows that the European transition region benefited much more strongly from financial integration in terms of economic growth than other developing countries in the years preceding the current crisis. We analyze several factors that may explain this finding:...

Within the next few months, the Greek government, is supposed to persuade private creditors holding about EUR 200bn in its bonds to voluntarily exchange their existing bonds for new bonds that pay roughly 50 percent less. This may work with large creditors whose failure to participate in a debt...

The Greek debt restructuring of 2012 stands out in the history of sovereign defaults. It achieved very large debt relief – over 50 per cent of 2012 GDP – with minimal financial disruption, using a combination of new legal techniques, exceptionally large cash incentives, and official sector...

We model the motives for residents of a country to hold foreign assets, including the precautionary motive that has been omitted from much previous literature as intractable. Our model captures many of the principal insights from the existing specialized literature on the precautionary motive,...

This paper puts recent theoretical developments in the literature on currency crises in perspective by comparing two theoretical approaches, one based on the speculative attack model of Krugman-Flood-Garber and the other approach, which evolved following the 1992-93 crisis of the European...

We present a model of the optimal level of international reserves for a small open economy seeking insurance against sudden stops in capital flows. We derive a formula for the optimal level of reserves, and show that plausible calibrations can explain reserves of the order of magnitude observed...

This Paper considers how an international lender of last resort can prevent self-fulfilling banking and currency crises in emerging economies. We compare two different arrangements: one in which the international lender of last resort injects international liquidity into financial markets, and...

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 adapt...