In competitive capital markets, risky debt claims that offer high yields in good times have high systematic risk exposure in bad times. We apply this idea to bank risk measurement. We find that banks with high accounting return on equity (ROE) prior to a crisis have higher systematic tail risk...

We identify incentives generated by the Bretton Woods II system that may have contributed to the sub-prime liquidity crisis now working its way through the international monetary system. We then evaluate the persistent conjecture that the liquidity crisis is or will become a balance of payments...

In this paper I use a large multi-country data set to analyze the determinants of abrupt and large "current account reversals." The results from a variance-component probit model indicate that the probability of experiencing a major current account reversal is positively affected by larger...

In this paper I analyze the relationship between the U.S. dollar and the U.S. current account. I deal with issues of sustainability, and I discuss the mechanics of current account adjustment. The analysis presented in this paper differs from other work in several respects: First, I emphasis the...

There are two main forces behind the large U.S. current account deficits. First, an increase in the U.S. demand for foreign goods. Second, an increase in the foreign demand for U.S. assets. Both forces have contributed to steadily increasing current account deficits since the mid--1990s. This...

This paper models and estimates ex ante safety-net benefits at a sample of large banks in US and Europe during 2003-2008. Our results suggest that difficult-to-fail and unwind (DFU) banks enjoyed substantially higher ex ante benefits than other institutions. Safety-net benefits prove...