This paper studies the implications of procyclical capital utilization rates for inference regarding cyclical movements in labor productivity and the degree of returns to scale. We organize our investigation around five questions that we study using a measure of capital services based on...

This paper explores the role played by government guarantees to banks’ foreigncreditors as a root cause of self-fulfilling twin banking-currency crises. We developa general equilibrium model in which such guarantees lead to these types of crises.Absent government guarantees, such crises are...

This paper argues that the recen Southeast Asian currency crisis was caused by large prospective deficits associated with implicit bailout guarantees to failing banking systems. We articulate this view using a simple dynamic general equilibrium model whose key feature is that a speculativ attack...