We explain the size of international reserve depletion during the global crisis, where only about half of the EMs drew down their reserves as part of the adjustment mechanism. Countries that internalized their large exposure to trade shocks before the crisis, used their IR as a buffer stock in...

This paper explores the logic inducing the FED to extend unprecedented swap-lines to four emerging markets in September 2008. Exposure of US banks to EMs turned out to be the most important selection criterion for explaining the "selected four" swap-lines. This result is consistent with the...

Developing Asia experienced a sharp surge in foreign currency reserves prior to the 2008-9 crisis. The global crisis has been associated with an unprecedented rise of swap agreements between central banks of larger economies and their counterparts in smaller economies. We explore whether such...