This paper shows that the risk of devaluation can be an important factor accounting for the stylized facts of exchange-rate-based stabilizations. This conclusion follows from studying the quantitative implications of a two-sector equilibrium business cycle model of a small open economy...

A salient characteristic of sovereign defaults is that they are typically accompanied by large devaluations. This paper presents new evidence of this empirical regularity known as the Twin Ds and proposes a model that rationalizes it as an optimal policy outcome. The model combines limited...

This paper presents a simple model of how a small open economy can undervalue its real exchange rate using its capital account policies. The paper presents several properties of such policies, and proposes a rule of thumb to assess their welfare cost. The model is applied to an analysis of...

The small open economy model with incomplete asset markets features a steady state that depends on initial conditions and equilibrium dynamics that possess a random walk component. A number of modifications to the standard model have been proposed to induce stationarity. This paper presents a...

We model the motives for residents of a country to hold foreign assets, including the precautionary motive that has been omitted from much previous literature as intractable. Our model captures many of the principal insights from the existing specialized literature on the precautionary motive,...

This paper considers the financing of investment in the presence of asymmetric information between the 'insiders' and the 'outsiders' of the firms in a small open economy. It establishes a well-defined capital structure for the economy as a whole with the following features: low-productivity...

Several recent papers argue that corporate income taxes should not be used by small, open economies. With capital mobility, the burden of the tax falls on fixed factors (e.g., labor), and the tax system is more efficient if labor is taxed directly. However, corporate taxes not only exist but...

Recent research in international business cycles based upon complete markets has found that international consumption correlations are lower than predicted by the standard risk-sharing implications of these models. In this paper, I use regression tests to ask whether two different types of...

This paper develops a dynamic two-country neoclassical stochastic growth model with incomplete markets. Short-term credit flows can be excessive and reverse suddenly. The equilibrium outcome is constrained inefficient due to pecuniary externalities. First, an undercapitalized country borrows too...

What is the relationship between interest rates and the exchange rate? The empirical literature in this area has been inconclusive. We use an optimizing model of a small open economy to rationalize the mixed empirical findings. The model has three key margins. First, higher domestic interest...