This paper examines episodes of banking sector distress for a large sample of developed and developing countries, highlighting the experience of Japan. By a host of criteria, Japan appeared to be in a stronger position than most countries at the onset of banking problems low inflation,...

Japanese official intervention in the foreign exchange market is of by far the largest magnitude in the world, despite little or no evidence that it is effective in moving exchange rates. Up until recently, however, official data on intervention has not been available for Japan. This paper...

Are countries with unregulated capital flows more vulnerable to currency crises? Efforts to answer this question properly must control for "self selection" bias since countries with liberalized capital accounts may also have more sound economic policies and institutions that make them less...

This paper investigates the output effects of IMF-supported stabilization programs, especially those introduced at the time of a severe balance of payments/currency crisis. Using a panel data set over the 1975–1997 period and covering 67 developing and emerging market economies (with 461 IMF...

A large literature on the appropriate sequencing of financial liberalization suggests that removing capital controls prematurely may contribute to currency instability. This paper investigates whether legal restrictions on international capital flows are associated with greater currency...

Sudden Stops are the simultaneous occurrence of a currency/balance of payments crisis with a reversal in capital flows (Calvo, 1998). We investigate the output effects of financial crises in emerging markets, focusing on whether sudden-stop crises are a unique phenomenon and whether they entail...