Over the past five years China has emerged as the world's largest global surplus economy; indeed by 2007-08 the size of its surplus relative to its GDP was of a magnitude unprecedented for a large trading economy. This development is especially surprising since in the first twenty-five years of...

This study presents the case for an international banking standard (IBS) to deal with the rash of banking crises in developing countries. Over the past 15 years, almost three-fourths of the IMF's member countries have experienced at least one serious bout of banking problems; there have been at...

In this analysis Morris Goldstein examines currency regime choices for emerging economies that are heavily involved with private capital markets. The author argues that the best regime choice for such economies would be managed floating plus, where "plus" is shorthand for a framework that...

Global currency markets have remained unsettled. The dollar hit record lows against both the yen and the mark in 1995. The Mexican crisis led to a free fall of the peso. Renewed tensions in the European Monetary System required devaluations in Spain and Portugal. It is thus fortuitous that the...

The turmoil that rocked Asian markets after the middle of 1997 and that spread far afield was the third major currency crisis of the 1990s. Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and South Korea suffered outright recessions in 1998. In an effort to contain the crisis, almost $120 billion was pledged in...