Writings on the macroeconomic impact of capital account liberalization find few, if any, robust effects of liberalization on real variables. In contrast to the prevailing wisdom, I argue that the textbook theory of liberalization holds up quite well to a critical reading of this literature. The...

The IMF attempts to stabilize private capital flows to emerging markets by providing public monitoring and emergency finance. In analyzing its role we contrast cases where banks and bondholders do the lending. Banks have a natural advantage in monitoring and creditor coordination, while bonds...

What has been the effect of the shift in emerging market capital flows toward private sector borrowers? Are emerging market capital flows more efficient? If not, can controls on capital flows improve welfare? This paper shows that the answers depend on the form of default risk. When private...

We investigate the effectiveness of capital controls in insulating economies from currency crises, focusing in particular on both direct and indirect effects of capital controls and how these relationships may have changed over time in response to global financial liberalization and the greater...

Financial globalization opened international capital markets to investors and firms all over the world. Foreign capital raisings by firms have increased substantially since the early 1990s in terms of equity as well as debt. I review the literature on the determinants and patterns of...

The simplest tests of capital market efficiency are tests of the fair game model: conditional expected returns less the interest rate are equal to zero. The fair game model is thought to obtain only when markets are perfectly liquid. We show that this conjecture is false. In a model of the...