Recent years have witnessed a change in the composition of capital flows to developing countries, and FDI and equity flows have been playing an increasing role. In this paper we discuss the challenges for international macroeconomics that these developments pose and characterize stylized facts...

This note documents and assesses the role of small financial centers in the international financial system using a newly-assembled dataset. It presents estimates of the foreign asset and liability positions for a number of the most important small financial centers, and places these into context...

A rapidly growing empirical literature is studying the causes and consequences of bank fragility in present-day economies. The paper reviews the two basic methodologies adopted in cross-country empirical studies-the signals approach and the multivariate probability model-and their application to...

Using aggregate and bank level data for several countries, the paper studies what happens to the banking system in the aftermath of a banking crisis. Contemporary crises are not accompanied by declines in aggregate bank deposits, and credit does not fall relative to output, although the growth...

Banking crises are usually followed by a decline in credit and growth. Is this because crises tend to take place during economic downturns, or do banking sector problems have independent negative effects on the economy? To answer this question we examine industrial sectors with differing needs...

A common legacy of banking crises is a large increase in government debt, as fiscal resources are used to shore up the banking system. Do crisis response strategies that commit more fiscal resources lower the economic costs of crises? Based on evidence from a sample of 40 banking crises we find...

We examine whether the cross-country incidence and severity of the 2008-2009 global recession is systematically related to pre-crisis macroeconomic and financial factors. We find that the pre-crisis level of development, increases in the ratio of private credit to GDP, current account deficits,...