Prior to the late 1990s, low unemployment was a standard feature of macroeconomic life in Hong Kong. Between 1985 and 1997, the unemployment rate averaged 2.5 percent. But the picture changed dramatically thereafter with the unemployment rate rising to 6.2 percent by 1999 and remaining above 5...

This paper studies how a bank regulator's aggregate and bank-specific information dis-closure policy affects social welfare. We apply global games to studying an economy where depositors, with strategic complementarities among them, face uncertainties about both aggregate and bank-specific...

This paper investigates whether stock market liquidity has an impact on banks’ risk-taking behaviour. Using the Tick Size Pilot Program of the Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) to identify liquidity shocks, I show that banks with less liquid stocks take more risk, as reflected in lower...

This study examines exchange rate pass-through in a 'small country' context. The study uses a panel of disaggregated exports from Hong Kong to its major flexible exchange rate destinations since 1992. Most existing evidence on pass-through is taken from G7 countries and finds that export prices...

A classic argument for flexible exchange rates is that the exchange rate plays a 'shock-absorber' role in an open economy vulnerable to country-specific shocks. This paper presents a sharp counter-example to this argument within a very conventional open economy model. Countries are subject to...

We study the classic transfer problem of predicting the effects of an international transfer on the terms of trade and the current account. A two-country model with debt and capital allows for realistic features of historical transfers: they follow wartime increases in government spending and...

Most theoretical analysis of flexible vs. fixed exchange rates take the degree of nominal rigidity to be independent of the exchange rate regime choice itself. But informal policy discussion often suggests that a credible exchange rate peg may increase internal price flexibility. This paper...