This paper discusses the role of the credit rating agencies during the recent financial crises. In particular, it examines whether the agencies can add to the dynamics of emerging market crises. Academics and investors often argue that sovereign credit ratings are responsible for pronounced...

In this paper we attempt to identify the characteristics of banks that are most likely to be at the origin of a banking crisis following a financial liberalization (FL) process. We do this analysis in response to the observed fact that FL processes arse often followed by banking crisis that cost...

This paper explores theoretically and empirically the link between Financial Liberalization (FL) and the banking crisis that often follow. We also investigate the proposition, classical in development economics, that FL should result in an increase in supply of funds to the real sector. To...

This article studies how equity ownership and corporate control were separated in the United States. Initially, railroads and industrial firms were tightly controlled by a few shareholders; this situation was altered in the 1890s by massive mergers and reorganizations, which allowed private...

The origins of Wall Street are tied to Alexander Hamilton's plans for the financing of the new nation and the funding of its debt. The two hundredth anniversary of Wall Street in 1992 occasioned many retrospectives that owe more to mythology than to historical veracity. Wall Street's earliest...

In this paper we show that the spread of the classical gold=20 standard in the late nineteenth century increased international trade=20 flows. This positive effect was compounded whenever a group of countries=20 formed a monetary union. Applying the gravity model of trade to more than=20 1,100...

We present a model of bank passivity and regulatory failure. Banks with low equity positions have more incentives to be passive in liquidating bad loans. We show that they tend to hide distress from regulatory authorities and are ready to offer a higher rate of interest in order to attract...

This paper investigates the main sources of instability in Brazil during the currency and financial distress episode of 2002. We test for financial contagion from the Argentine crisis and the impact of factors including IMF intervention and political uncertainty in raising the probability of...

This paper proposes a framework for comovements of asset prices with seemingly unrelated fundamentals, as an outcome of optimal portfolio strategies by fund managers. In emerging markets, dedicated managers outperforming a benchmark index and global managers maximizing absolute returns lead to...

Emerging markets are often exposed to sudden stops of capital inflows. What are the effects of monetary policy in such an environment? To answer this question, the paper proposes a model with the typical elements of an emerging market economy. Credit frictions generate balance sheet effects,...