We consider public debt from a long-term historical perspective, showing how the purposes for which governments borrow have evolved over time. Periods when debt-to-GDP ratios rose explosively as a result of wars, depressions and financial crises also have a long history. Many of these episodes...

We consider public debt from a long-term historical perspective, showing how the purposes for which governments borrow have evolved over time. Periods when debt-to-GDP ratios rose explosively as a result of wars, depressions and financial crises also have a long history. Many of these episodes...

This paper presents an empirical analysis of speculative attacks on pegged exchange rates in 22 countries between 1967 and 1992. We define speculative attacks or crises as large movements in exchange rates, interest rates, and international reserves. We develop stylized facts concerning the...

This paper deals with the relation between commercial policy and "the" equilibrium real exchange rate. The paper clarifies the meaning of real exchange rate by comparing five different definitions that are currently found in the literature, The analysis focuses on the effects of an economic...

This paper uses three models of a small open economy to analyze the effects of terms of trade and exchange rate changes (i.e. devaluations) on labor market adjustment. First, a three goods (exportables, importables, non-tradables), four factors model is developed and used to investigate how an...

The finding of Feldstein and Horioka (1980) that countriesf investment rates are highly correlated with their national saving rates has by now been confirmed by many subsequent studies, even though their inference that international capital mobility nust be low has not been as widely accepted....

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the potential role of monetary and real factors in explaining real exchange rate variability in developing countries. For this purpose two indexes of real effective exchange rate variability that measure short-term and long-term variability were...

The purpose of this paper is to compare the pricing of bank loans and bonds in international markets. The results obtained, using data on LDC debtors, indicate that in both markets the country risk premium has responded to some of the variables suggested by the theory. However, the way in which...