The purpose of the UDROP proposal is to prevent debt rollover crises for foreign-currency-denominated debt instruments. For such liabilities, there is no international analogue to the domestic lender of last resort or to domestic deposit insurance. UDROP stands for Universal Debt Rollover Option...

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 makes a case that the global imbalances of the 2000s and the recent global financial crisis are intimately connected. Both have their origins in economic policies followed in a number of countries in the 2000s and in distortions that influenced the transmission of these policies...

In the evolving debate and analysis of global imbalances, a commonly overlooked issue pertains to rising protectionism. This paper attempts to fill that gap, examining the macroeconomic implications of trade policy changes through the lens of a dynamic general equilibrium model of the world...

This paper studies German bank lending during the Asian and Russian crises, using a bank level data set from the Deutsche Bundesbank. Our aim is to gain more insight into the pattern of German bank lending during financial crises in emerging markets. We find that German banks reacted to the...

This paper analyzes the impact of terms of trade and risk-premium shocks on a small open economy in an intertemporal, Dutch disease model, with international capital mobility. It is shown that when the economy experiences a permanent improvement in the terms of trade, the Dutch disease effect...

How do countries hold their financial wealth? We construct a new database of countries' claims on capital located at home and abroad, and international borrowing and lending, covering 68 countries from 1966-97. We find that a small amount of capital flows from rich countries to poor countries....

Stanley Fischer is a rarity among economic policymakers. He came to the policy world as an internationally recognized intellectual leader on macroeconomic theory and policy. He confronted numerous emerging market crises, including the globally systemic Asian crisis, as the IMF’s First Deputy...

We examine the determinants of external crises, focusing on the role of foreign liabilities and their composition. Using a variety of statistical tools and comprehensive data spanning 1970-2011, we find that the ratio of net foreign liabilities to GDP is a significant crisis predictor. This is...