This paper addresses the issue of the optimal stock of international reserves in terms of a statistical model in which reserves affect both the probability of a Sudden Stop-as well as associated output costs-by reducing the balance-sheet effects of liability dollarization. Optimal reserves are...

Using a sample of emerging markets that are integrated into global bond markets, we analyze the collapse and recovery phase of output collapses that coincide with systemic sudden stops, defined as periods of skyrocketing aggregate bond spreads and large capital flow reversals. Our findings...

Using a sample of 32 developed and developing countries we analyze the empirical characteristics of sudden stops in capital flows and the relevance of balance sheet effects in the likelihood of their materialization. We find that large real exchange rate (RER) fluctuations coming hand in hand...

Using a sample of 110 developed and developing countries for the period 1990-2004 we analyze the empirical characteristics of systemic sudden stops (3S) in capital flows --understood as large and largely unexpected capital account contractions that occur in periods of systemic turmoil -- and the...

We offer an alternative explanation for the fall of Argentina's Convertibility Program based on the country's vulnerability to Sudden Stops in capital flows. Sudden Stops are typically accompanied by a substantial increase in the real exchange rate that breaks havoc in countries that are heavily...

Sudden Stops are associated with increased volatility in relative prices. We introduce a model based on information acquisition to rationalize this increased volatility. An empirical analysis of the conditional variance of the wholesale price to consumer price ratio using panel ARCH techniques...

IMF forecasts and the EU's Fiscal Compact foresee Europe's heavily indebted countries running primary budget surpluses of as much as 5 percent of GDP for as long as 10 years in order to maintain debt sustainability and bring their debt/GDP ratios down to the Compact's 60 percent target. We show...

Recent years have seen the development of a large literature on balance sheet factors in emerging-market financial crises. In this paper we discuss three concepts widely used in this literature. Two of them original sin' and debt intolerance' seek to explain the same phenomenon, namely, the...

This paper documents large cross-country differences in the long run volatility of the real exchange rate. In particular, it shows that the real exchange rate of developing countries is approximately three times more volatile than the real exchange rate in industrial countries. The paper tests...