We use a unique panel of retail prices spanning 123 cities in 79 countries from 1990 to 2005, to uncover six novel properties of long-run international price dispersion. First, at the PPP level, virtually all (91.6%) of price dispersion is attributed to service-sector wages, consistent with a...

This paper provides, for the first time, large-scale evidence that liquidity transformation by banks creates fragility, as their uninsured depositors face an incentive to withdraw their money before others (a so-called panic run). Such fragility manifests itself in stronger sensitivity of...

This paper provides an overview of the complex conceptual and practical challenges that emerging market economies face as they attempt to reform their frameworks for financial regulation. These economies are striving to balance the quest for financial stability with the imperatives of financial...

Financial systems are inherently fragile because of the very function which makes them valuable: liquidity transformation. Regulatory reforms can strengthen the financial system and decrease the risk of liquidity crises, but they cannot eliminate it completely. This leaves monetary policy with a...

We propose several econometric measures of systemic risk to capture the interconnectedness among the monthly returns of hedge funds, banks, brokers, and insurance companies based on principal components analysis and Granger-causality tests. We find that all four sectors have become highly...

The accumulation of international reserves by emerging markets raises the question of how to best utilize these funds. This paper explores two routes through which the pooling of reserves could enhance stability and welfare. First, the reserve pool could be used for emergency lending in response...

We present a model of flight to quality episodes that emphasizes financial system risk and the Knightian uncertainty surrounding these episodes. In the model, agents are uncertain about the probability distribution of shocks in markets different from theirs, treating such uncertainty as...

This paper introduces a framework for analyzing the role of financial factors as a source of instability in small open economies. Our basic model is a dynamic open economy model with a tradeable good produced with capital and a country-specific factor. We also assume that firms face credit...

In this note, we revisit an earlier, highly influential paper on Financial Dependence and Growth by Rajan and Zingales (1998), by re-examining their assumptions, and the robustness of their results to alternative theories and interpretations. We first show that they may be implicitly testing...

This paper explains the puzzle of how a developing economy can shift from a path of reasonable growth before a financial crisis, as in Mexico in 1994, to a sharp decline in economic activity after a crisis occurs. It does so by outlining an asymmetric information framework for analyzing banking...