We outline a model of an endogenously evolving banking crisis in a growing economy subject to either idiosyncratic or aggregate productivity shocks. The model incorporates agency problems at two levels: between firms and their banks and between banks and the banks’ depositors and deposit...

Standard economic models hold that exchange rates are influenced by fundamental variables such as relative money supplies, outputs, inflation rates and interest rates. Nonetheless, it has been well documented that such variables little help predict changes in floating exchange rates Š that is,...

We investigate the possibility that the large current account deficits of the U.S. are the outcome of optimizing behavior. We develop a simple long-run world equilibrium model in which the current account is determined by the expected discounted present value of its future share of world GDP...