This paper argues that the recent Southeast Asian currency crises was caused by large prospective deficits associated with implicit bailout guarantees to failing banking systems. We articulate this view using a simple dynamic general equilibrium model whose key feature is that a speculative...

How much of carry trade excess returns can be explained by the presence of disaster risk? To answer this question, we propose a simple structural model that includes both Gaussian and disaster risk premia and can be estimated even in samples that do not contain disasters. The model points to a...

A key precursor of twentieth-century financial crises in emerging and advanced economies alike was the rapid buildup of leverage. Those emerging economies that avoided leverage booms during the 2000s also were most likely to avoid the worst effects of the twenty-first century’s first global...

This paper studies sharp reductions in current account deficits and large exchange rate depreciations in low- and middle-income countries. It examines which factors help predict the occurrence of a reversal or a currency crisis, and how these events affect macroeconomic performance. It finds...

This paper presents a simple model of currency crises, which is driven by the interplay between the credit constraints of private domestic firms and the existence of nominal price rigidities. The possibility of multiple equilibria, including a ‘currency crisis’ equilibrium with low output...

This Paper proposes a new framework for interpreting a currency crisis associated with a fiscal imbalance, which we find appropriate for the analysis of contemporary economies with outstanding public debt. Unlike the first-generation literature on speculative attacks, we do not assume that money...

We pursue the idea that a region presents a common ‘prospectus’ to investors and lenders. Specifically, we explore whether investors respond to regional developments, rather than to country-specific fundamentals. Such behaviour may be appropriate where regions are identified by common...

This Paper explores the implications of different strategies for financing the fiscal costs of twin crises in inflation and depreciation rates. We use a first-generation type model of speculative attacks which has four key features: (i) the crisis is triggered by prospective deficits: (ii) there...

This Paper addresses two questions: (i) how do governments actually pay for the fiscal costs associated with currency crises; and (ii) what are the implications of different financing methods for post-crisis rates of inflation and depreciation? We study these questions using a general...

This paper studies the role of unemployment in sterling’s inter-war experience. According to most narrative accounts, the proximate cause of the 1931 sterling crisis was a high and rising unemployment rate that placed pressure on British governments to pursue reflationary policies. We present...