Partisan conflict and policy uncertainty are frequently invoked as factors contributing to slow post-crisis recoveries. Recent events in Europe provide ample evidence that the political aftershocks of financial crises can be severe. In this paper we study the political fall-out from systemic...

A sketch of the International Monetary Fund’s 70-year history reveals an institution that has reinvented itself over time along multiple dimensions. This history is primarily consistent with a “demand driven” theory of institutional change, as the needs of its clients and the type of...

Capital flow and commodity cycles have long been connected with economic crises. Sparse historical data, however, has made it difficult to connect their timing. We date turning points in global capital flows and commodity prices across two centuries and provide estimates from alternative data...

We develop a model of rational bubbles based on leverage and the assumption of an imprecisely known maximum market size. In a bubble, traders push the asset price above its fundamental value in a dynamic way, driven by rational expectations about future price developments. At a previously...

Unsustainable accumulation of debt precedes financial crises. The recent Western financial crisis was no exception in this regard. The external debt of Greece, Iceland, Ireland, and Spain increased exponentially, in Iceland at a rate higher than the rate of interest on foreign debt. The Ponzi...

Can central banks defuse rising stability risks in financial booms by leaning against the wind with higher interest rates? This paper studies the state-dependent effects of monetary policy on financial stability. Based on the near-universe of advanced economy financial cycles since the 19th...

We first present a simple model of post-crisis policymaking driven by both public and private interests. Using a novel dataset covering 94 countries between 1973 and 2015, we then establish that financial crises can lead to government interventions in financial markets. Consistent with a public...

Does enhanced shareholder liability reduce bank failure? We compare the performance of around 4,200 state-regulated banks of similar size in neighboring U.S. states with different liability regimes during the Great Depression. The distress rate of limited liability banks was 29% higher than that...

Using a panel fixed effects model for a sample of 121 countries covering 1975 ]2005, we examine how financial development, financial liberalization and banking crises are related to income inequality. In contrast with most previous work, our results suggest that all finance variables increase...

This paper analyzes the channels through which financial crises exert long-term negative effects on output. Recent models suggest that a shortfall in productivity-enhancing investments temporarily slows technological progress, creating a gap between pre-crisis trend and actual GDP. This...