This paper constructs new indicators of liquidity for equity, bond and money markets in major advanced and emerging market countries, documents their evolution and comovements, and assesses the extent to which such measures are determinants of selected spreads and proxy measures of countries'...

This paper consolidates previous work on the development of secondary markets for government securities, and focuses on the sequencing of measures necessary for their development. Six main lessons are identified: (i) a commitment to achieving and maintaining a stable macroeconomic environment,...

The simultaneous unwinding of leveraged positions can trigger financial market turbulence. Although balance-sheet measures of leverage are available, it is useful to construct a measure of leverage that incorporates both on- and off-balance-sheet activities. This paper provides measures of...

This paper investigates the contagion from Russia to Brazil in late 1998 under two dimensions— players involved and the timing of events. The data does not seem to reflect a compensatory liquidation of assets story by international institutional investors. It does contribute, however, to the...

In this paper, we examine the ability of the contingent claims approach (CCA) to identify corporate sector and economy-wide vulnerabilities. We apply the Moody's MfRisk model, which uses aggregated CCA principles, to assess vulnerabilities retroactively in two historical country cases. The...

In reaction to the recent financial crisis, increased attention has recently been given to financial transaction taxes (FTTs) as a means of (1) raising revenue for a variety of possible purposes and/or (2) helping to curb financial market excesses. This paper reviews existing theory and evidence...

This paper introduces a new dataset on the composition of the investor base for government securities in the G20 advanced economies and the euro area. During the last decades, investors from abroad have increased their presence in government bond markets. The financial crisis broke this trend....

We estimate sovereign bond spreads of 28 emerging economies over the period January 1998-December 2011 and test the ability of the model in generating accurate in-sample predictions for emerging economies bond spreads. The impact and significance of country-specific and global explanatory...

We analyze determinants of sovereign bond yields in 22 advanced economies over the 1980-2010 period using panel cointegration techniques. The application of cointegration methodology allows distinguishing between long-run (debt-to-GDP ratio, potential growth) and short-run (inflation, short-term...

Intro -- Contents -- I. INTRODUCTION -- II. LOW GLOBAL INTEREST RATES: POSSIBLE EXPLANATIONS -- III. A MODEL OF INTEREST RATE DETERMINATION -- IV. EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE -- A. Data and Methodology -- B. Empirical Results -- C. A New Economy of Interest Rates? -- V. CONCLUSIONS AND POLICY...