Emerging market crises are characterized by large swings in both macroeconomic fundamentals and asset prices. The economic significance of observed movements in macroeconomic variables is obscured by the brief and extreme nature of crises. In this paper we propose to study the macroeconomic...

What determined the volatility of asset prices in Germany between the wars? This paper argues that the influence of political factors has been overstated. The majority of events increasing political uncertainty had little or no effect on the value of German assets and the volatility of returns...

One plausible mechanism through which financial market shocks may propagate across countries is through the impact that past gains and losses may have on investors’ risk aversion and behavior. This paper presents a stylized model illustrating how heterogeneous changes in investors’ risk...

We argue that one reason why emerging economies borrow short term is that it is cheaper than borrowing long term. This is especially the case during crises, as in these episodes the relative cost of long-term borrowing increases. We construct a unique database of sovereign bond prices, returns,...

In this paper, we use a unique long-run dataset of regulatory constraints on capital account openness to explain stock market correlations. Since stock returns themselves are highly volatile, any examination of what drives correlations needs to focus on long runs of data. This is particularly...

This paper proposes to estimate the covariance matrix of stock returns by an optimally weighted average of two existing estimators: the sample covariance matrix and single-index covariance matrix. This method is generally known as shrinkage, and it is standard in decision theory and in empirical...

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...

Contingent sovereign debt can create important welfare gains. Nonetheless, there is almost no issuance today. Using hand-collected archival data, we examine the first known case of large-scale use of state-contingent sovereign debt in history. Philip II of Spain entered into hundreds of...

In 2007, countries in the euro periphery were enjoying stable growth, low deficits, and low spreads. Then the financial crisis erupted and pushed them into deep recessions, raising their deficits and debt levels. By 2010, they were facing severe debt problems. Spreads increased and,...

I provide a framework for understanding debt deleveraging in a group of financially integrated countries. During an episode of international deleveraging world consumption demand is depressed and the world interest rate is low, reflecting a high propensity to save. If exchange rates are allowed...