This paper highlights the findings of some of the recent research on capital flows, credit booms, and their attendant consequences for asset prices, business cycles, financial crises and the interaction among these. The aim is to condense key results from the relevant literature and promote...

Due in part to 40 years of cyclical violence, economic growth in Burundi has remained well below the sub-Saharan Africa average, and Burundi is now the third poorest country in the world. The status quo is unacceptable, and it is essential that the Government drive the changes needed to achieve...

Due in part to 40 years of cyclical violence, economic growth in Burundi has remained well below the sub-Saharan Africa average, and Burundi is now the third poorest country in the world. The status quo is unacceptable, and it is essential that the Government drive the changes needed to achieve...

These are the narrative individual country histories of exchange rate arrangements, 1946-2001 that underpin "The Modern History of Exchange Rate Arrangements: A Reinterpretation". The chronologies allow us to date dual or multiple exchange rate episodes, as well as to differentiate between...

Using annual data for Colombia over the last 30 years, we test competing theories that explain macroeconomic fluctuations: the neoclassical synthesis, which posits that in the presence of temporary price rigidity, an unanticipated monetary expansion produces output gains that erode over time...

Given all the ambiguities about the outcomes of the financial liberalization process, it is relevant to ask what the systematic, cross-country evidence reveals on several questions, including: What happens to key macroeconomic and variables following domestic and external financial...

In this paper we present evidence that capital account reversals have become more severe for emerging markets. Because policy options are limited in the midst of a capital market crisis and because so many countries have already had crises recently, we focus on some of the policies that could...

This is the chartbook of individual country exchange rate histories and their experience with parallel markets, 1946-2001 that accompanies "The Modern History of Exchange Rate Arrangements: A Reinterpretation." We develop a novel system of reclassifying historical exchange rate regimes. One key...

Many emerging market countries have suffered financial crises. One view blames soft pegs for these crises. Adherents to that view suggest that countries move to corner solutions--hard pegs or floating exchange rates. We analyze the behavior of exchange rates, reserves, and interest rates to...

More frequent and increasingly severe crises are encouraging emerging market economies to seek means to make themselves less vulnerable to sudden stops in capital flows. Capital controls have been widely discussed, but dollarization may offer a longer-term and more market-friendly solution.