This paper studies sharp reductions in current account deficits and large exchange rate depreciations in low- and middle-income countries. It examines which factors help predict the occurrence of a reversal or a currency crisis, and how these events affect macroeconomic performance. It finds...

This paper contains a selective review of some of the key fiscal issues faced by transition economies. The twelve countries that provide the empirical background for this study have all been under Fund programmes for at least some of the time since they initiated their transitions from plan to...

A key precursor of twentieth-century financial crises in emerging and advanced economies alike was the rapid buildup of leverage. Those emerging economies that avoided leverage booms during the 2000s also were most likely to avoid the worst effects of the twenty-first century’s first global...

This paper discusses several determinants of the differential between yields on Italian government securities and yields on foreign government securities. We concentrate on expectations of (at least partial) insolvency, tax factors and exchange rate expectations. The evidence suggests that most...

We argue that emerging economies borrow short term due to the high risk premium charged by bondholders on long-term debt. First, we present a model where the debt maturity structure is the outcome of a risk sharing problem between the government and bondholders. By issuing long-term debt, the...

We analyse the choice of exchange rate regimes of the 25 transition economies in Europe and the CIS after 1990. The empirical results show that the traditional Optimum Currency Area considerations provide relevant guidance for the exchange rate regime choices in these countries. Moreover,...

In this Paper we present an overview of a number of issues relating to the equilibrium exchange rates of the new EU member states from Central and Eastern Europe. In particular, we present a critical overview of the various methods available for calculating equilibrium exchange rates and discuss...

Real exchange appreciation has been a common feature in transition economies since the launching of stabilization and reform programs at the beginning of the 1990s. Previous literature has described this phenomenon as an equilibrium adjustment that followed a sharp undervaluation at the start of...

We use a spatial model of endogenous growth to investigate the likely impact of discriminatory integration among two advanced insider countries on their own welfare as well as on the welfare of an outsider transition economy. A first point is that, since convergence in per capita income levels...

How much of carry trade excess returns can be explained by the presence of disaster risk? To answer this question, we propose a simple structural model that includes both Gaussian and disaster risk premia and can be estimated even in samples that do not contain disasters. The model points to a...