Several European countries face challenges reminiscent of those faced by the emerging economies of Latin America. The economic booms in some peripheral Euro-zone countries financed by large capital inflows; the credit and asset price booms and then the busts including Sudden Stops in capital...

During the last two decades the emerging countries have experienced an upward trend in reserve accumulation. However, high level of foreign reserve assets implies certain costs. Consequently, given the trade-off between the benefits and the costs of holding reserves, there are issues related to...

There is an increasing need for a system of international lending of last resort (ILLR) to provide a safety net in the event of financial crises in vulnerable countries as financial globalization deepens and spreads. Multilateral progress to address liquidity and solvency crises has been patchy...

Since the summer of 1997, the East Asian "tiger" nations have suffered an unprecedented bout of weakness, plunging what had been vigorously expanding economies into a deep crisis. A number of domestic economic problems joined forces with turbulence on the foreign exchanges to generate a crisis...