This paper develops a structural VAR model to measure how a shock to one country can affect the GDP of other countries. It uses trade linkages to estimate the multiplier effects of a shock as it is transmitted through other countries' output fluctuations. The paper introduces a new specification...

Countries are using macroprudential tools more actively with the goal of improving the resilience of their broader financial systems. A growing body of evidence suggests that these tools can accomplish specific domestic goals and should reduce country vulnerability to many domestic and...

Why are foreigners willing to invest almost $2 trillion per year in the United States? The answer affects if the existing pattern of global imbalances can persist and if the United States can continue to finance its current account deficit without a major change in asset prices and returns. This...

Macroeconomic analyses of capital controls face a number of imposing challenges and have yielded mixed results to date. This paper takes a different approach and surveys an emerging literature that evaluates various microeconomic effects of capital controls and capital account liberalization....

Widespread support for capital account liberalization in emerging markets has recently shifted to skepticism and even support for capital controls in certain circumstances. This sea-change in attitudes has been bolstered by the inconclusive macroeconomic evidence on the benefits of capital...

There is growing support for taxes on short-term capital inflows in emerging markets, such as the encaje adopted by Chile from 1991-98. Previous empirical assessments of the encaje conclude that it may have generated some small economic benefits, such as shifting the composition of capital...

This paper examines how 12 'major depreciations' between 1997 and 2000 affected different measures of firm performance in a sample of over 13,500 companies from around the world. Results suggest that in the year after depreciations, firms have significantly higher growth in market...

This paper examines how devaluations affect the relative costs of labor and capital and therefore influence production, profitability, investment, and stock returns for firms in the 'crisis' country as well as competitors in the rest of the world. After developing these ideas in a small,...

This paper measures whether trade linkages are important determinants of a country's vulnerability to crises that originate elsewhere in the world. It explains that trade can transmit crises internationally via three distinct, and possible counteracting, channels: a competitiveness effect (when...

This paper finds strong support for a Phillips curve that becomes nonlinear when inflation is "low"--which our baseline model defines as less than 3 percent. The nonlinear curve is steep when output is above potential (slack is negative), but flat when output is below potential (slack is...