The purpose of this paper is to show that macroeconomic impacts might be very different depending on what strategy developing countries will take. In the first part, we investigate what macroeconomic impacts an increased aversion to liquidity risk can have in a simple open economy model. When...

We use a portfolio-based framework to understand what drives the decline of the U.S. net foreign asset (NFA) position and the reversal in returns earned on the US NFA (exorbitant privilege). We show that global savings gluts and monetary policies widened the U.S. NFA position, while investor...

A number of developing countries have run large and persistent current account deficits in both the late seventies/early eighties and in the early nineties, raising the issue of whether these persistent imbalances are sustainable. This paper puts forward a notion of current account...

The last few years have seen a significant re-evaluation of the models used to analyze crises in emerging markets. Recent models typically stress financial constraints or distorted financial incentives. While this certainly represents progress, these models share a weakness with the earlier...

In this paper we document three credit market imperfections prevalent in middle income countries that can help explain the boom-bust cycles as well as other macroeconomic patterns observed at higher frequencies across these countries. These imperfections are: the existence of financing...

Several recent twin' currency and banking crises were preceded by lending booms during which the banking system financed rapid growth of the nontradable (N) sector by borrowing in foreign currency. They were followed by recessions during which a sharp decline in credit especially hurt the...

The paper assesses the costs and benefits of active international reserve management (IRM), shedding light on the question of how intense should IRM be for an emerging market. In principle, an active IRM strategy could lower real exchange rate volatility induced by terms of trade shocks; provide...

The sizable hoarding of international reserves by several East Asian countries has been frequently attributed to a modern version of monetary mercantilism -- hoarding international reserves in order to improve competitiveness. From a long-run perspective, manufacturing exporters in East Asia...

This paper explores econometric and theoretical interpretations for the relatively high demand for international reserves by countries in the Far East and the relatively low demand by some other developing countries. Using a sample of about 125 developing countries, we show that reserve holdings...

While there is still much disagreement on the causes underlying recent emerging markets' crises, one factor that most observers have agreed upon is that contracting dollar' (foreign currency) denominated external debt as opposed to domestic currency debt created balance sheet mismatches that led...