This paper presents a unified framework to highlight possible channels for the international transmission of financial shocks. We first review the different definitions and measures of contagion used in the literature. We then use a simple multi-country asset pricing model to cast the main...

This paper presents a general test of contagion in financial markets based on bivariate correlation analysis � a test that can be interpreted as an extension of the normal correlation theorem. Contagion is defined as a structural break in the data generating process of rates of return....

This paper analyzes the Risk Appetite Index (RAI), a measure of investors� risk aversion proposed by Kumar and Persaud (2001, 2002). We show that the RAI distinguishes between risk and risk aversion only under theoretically restrictive assumptions on the distribution of returns and the...

This paper extends some theoretical results of Morris and Shin (1998) concerning the role of uncertainty about fundamentals in currency crises and tests their empirical relevance using a novel approach based on the distribution of survey expectations. Econometric evidence from the Asian crisis...

We introduce a novel methodology to measure the relative TFP of the tradeable sector across countries, based on the relationship between trade and TFP in the model of Eaton and Kortum (2002). The logic of our approach is to measure TFP not from its "primitive" (the production function) but from...

We analyze the foundations of the relationship between trade and total factor productivity (TFP) in the Ricardian model. Under general assumptions about the autarky distributions of industry productivities, trade openness raises TFP. This is due to the selection effect of international...

The paper analyzes the role of the banking system in the international transmission of financial shocks. A channel of transmission is defined as a mechanism through which a financial crisis in one country brings about a financial crisis in another country. Channels involving the banking sector...

We explore the role of expectations in second generation currency crisis models, proving that sudden shifts in speculators' beliefs can trigger currency devaluations, even without any sizable worsening in the fundamentals. In our incomplete information game, mean-preserving changes in...

Estimates of the real term structure for the euro area implied by French index-linked bonds are obtained by means of a smoothing spline methodology. The real term structure allows computation of the constant-maturity inflation compensation, which is compared with the surveyed inflation...

This paper uses the celebrated no-arbitrage affine Gaussian term structure model applied to index-linked and standard government bonds to derive expected inflation rates and inflation risk premia, in the euro area and in the US. Maximum likelihood estimates show that the model describes the...