Over the last 20 years, some financial events, such as devaluations or defaults, have triggered an immediate adverse chain reaction in other countries--which we call fast and furious contagion. Yet, on other occasions, similar events have failed to trigger any immediate international reaction....

We identify the major public debt overhang episodes in the advanced economies since the early 1800s, characterized by public debt to GDP levels exceeding 90 percent for at least five years. Consistent with Reinhart and Rogoff (2010) and most of the more recent research, we find that public debt...

Half a decade has passed since the resurgence of international capital flows to many developing countries and history has, once again, shown that foreign investment is prone to repeated booms and busts. Mexico's 1994 crisis is but a recent example that highlights the vulnerability of...