How important is foreign diversification? In this paper, we re-examine this question motivated by findings from the literature about foreign companies that are listed on US exchanges. Specifically, domestic portfolios including cross-listed stocks can provide the same diversification as foreign...

International financial linkages, particularly through global bank flows, generate important questions about the consequences for economic and financial stability, including the ability of countries to conduct autonomous monetary policy. I address the monetary autonomy issue in the context of...

We analyze the Brazilian experience in the 1990s to assess the effectiveness of controls on capital inflows in restricting financial inflows and changing their composition towards long term flows. Econometric exercises (VARs) showed that controls on capital inflows were effective in deterring...

In this paper we connect the events of the last twelve months, "The Panic of 2008" as it has been called, to the demand for international reserves. In previous work, we have shown that international reserve demand can be rationalized by a central bank's desire to backstop the broad money supply...

The rapid growth of international reserves---a development concentrated in the emerging markets---remains a puzzle. In this paper we suggest that a model based on financial stability and financial openness goes far toward explaining reserve holdings in the modern era of globalized capital...

This paper analyzes the implication of inefficient financial intermediation for crisis management in a country where firms are highly-indebted. The analysis is based on a model in which firms rely on bank credit to finance their working capital needs and lenders face high state verification and...

This paper studies the effects of contagion on bank lending spreads and output fluctuations in Argentina. The first part presents the analytical framework, which analyzes the determination of bank lending spreads in the presence of verification and enforcement costs of loan contracts. The second...

This paper brings together two strands of the economic literature -- that on the finance-growth nexus and that on capital market integration -- and explores key issues surrounding each strand through both institutional/country histories and formal quantitative analysis. We begin with studies of...

Credit market imperfections provide the key to understanding many important issues in business cycles, growth and development, and international economics. Recent progress in these areas, however, has left in its wake a bewildering array of individual models with seemingly conflicting results....

It is widely argued that countries can reap large gains from liberalizing their capital accounts if financial globalization is accompanied by the development of domestic institutions and financial markets. However, if liberalization does not lead to financial development, globalization can...