This paper addresses the popular view that differences in financial development explain the pattern of global current account imbalances. One strain of thinking explains the net flow of capital from developing to industrial economies on the basis of the industrial economies' more advanced...

We purpose a novel explanation for the observed increase in the correlation of commodity prices over the past decade. In contrast to theories that rely on the increased influence of financial speculators, we show that price correlation can increase as a result of a decline in the interest rate....

This paper examines the question of how the path of real GDP in four important Latin American countries, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico, might have differed if the sharp run-up in borrowing during the late 1970s and early 1980s had not occurred. Specifically, we ask whether these countries...

This paper surveys the development and operation of the parallel exchange market in Argentina during the 1980s, and evaluates its impact upon macroeconomic performance and policy. The historical evolution of Argentina's exchange market policies is reviewed in order to understand the government's...

In recent years, a number of studies have analyzed the experiences of a broad range of industrial economies during periods when their current account deficits have narrowed. Such studies identified systematic aspects of external adjustment, but it is unclear how good a guide the experience of...

Analyses of the possible contractionary effects of exchange rate devaluation typically assume the foreign exchange market to be unified, thereby ignoring the large fraction of transactions taking place in the black market for foreign exchange that exist in many developing countries. This paper...