The fundamental importance of economic institutions for economic growth through their impact on technological change has been argued, reconfirmed by recent empirical studies, but not examined theoretically. This paper tries to fill that gap. In the model proposed, economic growth is affected by...

This paper provides a unified analysis for the onset of the 1998 financial crisis and the strong economic recovery afterward in Russia and other former Soviet Union countries. Before the crisis a banking failure arose owing to the coexistence of a lemons credit market and high government...

Financial crises are endogenized through corporate and interbank market institutions. Single-bank financing leads to a pooling equilibrium in the interbank market. With private information about one’s own solvency, the best illiquid banks will not borrow but rather will liquidate some...

This paper develops a simple model of an international lender of last resort (ILOLR). The world economy consists of many open economies, each with a banking system and a central bank operating under a pegged exchange rate regime. The fragility of the banking system and the limited ability of a...

This paper develops a model of the lender of last resort. It provides an analytical basis for “too big too fail” and a rationale for “constructive ambiguity”. Key results are that if contagion (moral hazard) is the main concern, the Central Bank (CB) will have an excessive (little)...

We provide a model of contagion where countries borrow or lend for consumption smoothing at the market interest rate or a lower IMF rate. Highly indebted countries hit by large negative shocks to output will default. The resulting reduction in loanable funds raises interest rates, increases the...

This paper examines the role of corruption in the design of monetary policies for developing countries in a framework of fiscal and monetary interaction and obtains several interesting results. First, pegged exchange rates, currency boards, or dollarization, while often prescribed as a solution...