In this paper I analyze, within the context of the new 'financial architecture,' the relationship between exchange rate regimes, capital flows and currency crises in emerging economies. The paper draws on lessons learned during the 1990s, and deals with some of the most important policy...

This paper reconsiders the 1992-3 crisis in the European Monetary System in light of its emerging market successors. That episode was a predecessor of the Mexican and Asian crises in the sense that both capital movements and domestic financial fragility placed important roles. The output effects...

This paper provides a comparative analysis of the East Asian and Mexican crises, and draws lessons for the emerging economies. Although much of the discussion concentrates on East Asia and Mexico, I also draw on the history of some previous crisis episodes. I argue that in spite of the efforts...

This paper studies the role of unemployment in sterling's interwar experience. According to most narrative accounts, the proximate cause of the 1931 sterling crisis was a high and rising unemployment rate that placed pressure on British governments to pursue reflationary policies. We present a...

The Mexican peso crisis of December 1994 shocked politicians, analysits, and pundits. Shock was followed by panic, as investors flew the country. It took a massive bail-out package put together by the IMF and the US Treasury to generate some tranquility in the markets in mid to late 1995. From...

As the recent Mexican crisis vividly illustrates, Latin American countries often go through boom-bust cycles caused by both domestic policies and external shocks. Such cycles are typically magnified by weak banking systems which intermediate large capital inflows. This paper develops a simple...

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 develops our analytical model to explore the relationship between the dynamics of macroeconomic adjustment and the timing of the implementation of an adjustment program featuring an official devaluation. The effects of postponing adjustment depend on the source of the original shock,...

The possibility that the euro area might break up was being raised even before the single currency existed. These scenarios were then lent new life five or six years on, when appreciation of the euro and problems of slow growth in various member states led politicians to blame the European...

In this paper I analyze the anatomy of current account adjustments in the world economy during the last three decades. The main findings may be summarized as follows: (a) Major reversals in current account deficits have tended to be associated to sudden stops' of capital inflows. (b) The...