I document that emerging markets have cast off their “original sin” – their external liabilitiesare no longer dominated by foreign-currency debt and have instead shifted sharply towardsdirect investment and portfolio equity. Their external assets are increasingly concentrated inforeign...

We document the recent phenomenon of uphill flows of capital from nonindustrial toindustrial countries and analyze whether this pattern of capital flows has hurt growth innonindustrial economies that export capital. Surprisingly, we find that there is a positivecorrelation between current...

Is the Chinese growth miracle - a remarkably high growth rate sustained for over twodecades - likely to persist or are the seeds of its eventual demise contained in the policiesthat have boosted growth? For all its presumed flaws, the particular approach tomacroeconomic and structural policies...

In theory, one of the main benefits of financial globalization is that it should allow for moreefficient international risk sharing. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive empiricalevaluation of the patterns of risk sharing among different groups of countries and examinehow international...

China's household saving rate has increased markedly since the mid-1990s and the age-saving profile has become U-shaped. Using a panel of urban Chinese households covering 1989-2006, we document a sharp increase in income uncertainty. While the permanent variance of household income was stable,...

This paper provides an overview of the complex conceptual and practical challenges that emerging market economies face as they attempt to reform their frameworks for financial regulation. These economies are striving to balance the quest for financial stability with the imperatives of financial...

In models with complete markets, targeting core inflation enables monetary policy to maximize welfare by replicating the flexible price equilibrium. In this paper, we develop a two-sector two-good closed economy new Keynesian model to study the optimal choice of price index in markets with...

I document that emerging markets have cast off their "original sin" – their external liabilities are no longer dominated by foreign-currency debt and have instead shifted sharply towards direct investment and portfolio equity. Their external assets are increasingly concentrated in foreign...

Distributional consequences typically receive limited attention in economic models that analyze the effects of monetary and financial sector policies. These consequences deserve more attention since financial markets are incomplete, imperfect, and economic agents' access to them is often...

The financial crisis has re-ignited the fierce debate about the merits of financial globalization and its implications for growth, especially for developing countries. The empirical literature has not been able to conclusively establish the presumed growth benefits of financial integration....