Adverse shocks to stock markets propagate across the world, with a jump in one region of the world seemingly causing an increase in the likelihood of a different jump in another region of the world. To capture this effect mathematically, we introduce a model for asset return dynamics with a...

We describe recent advances in the empirical analysis of insurance markets. This new research proposes ways to estimate individual demand for insurance and the relationship between prices and insurer costs in the presence of adverse and advantageous selection. We discuss how these models permit...

Like a fixed exchange rate, a target zone system may be subject to speculative attacks when the reserves of the central bank are limited. Thispaper analyzes such speculative attacks and their implications; it shows that the recently developed quot;smooth pastingquot; model of target zones should...

This paper develops a stochastic equilibrium model of an open economy incorporating speculation in the forward exchange market. The model is used to examine two issues. The first is the role of speculation in stabilizing the economy against stochastic disturbances. Much risk averse speculation...

Once one recognizes that governments borrow international reserves and exercise other policy options to defend fixed exchange rates during currency crises, the question arises: What factors determine a government's decision to abandon a currency peg or hang on? In a setting of purposeful action...

This paper is concerned with the fact that the incidence of speculative attacks tends to be temporally correlated; that is, currency crises appear to pass contagiously from one country to another. The paper provides a survey of the theoretical literature, and analyzes the contagious nature of...

This paper reconciles the persistence of aggregate real exchange rates with the faster adjustment of international relative prices in microeconomic data. Panel estimation of an error correction model using a micro data set uncovers new stylized facts regarding this puzzle. First, adjustment to...

This paper provides a baseline general-equilibrium model of optimal monetary policy among interdependent economies, with monopolistic firms that set prices one period in advance. Strict adherence to inward-looking policy objectives such as the stabilization of domestic output cannot be optimal...

This paper studies optimal fiscal and monetary policy under imperfect competition in a stochastic, flexible-price, production economy without capital. It shows analytically that in this economy the nominal interest rate acts as an indirect tax on monopoly profits. Unless the social planner has...