This paper provides a unified analysis for the onset of the 1998 financial crisis and the strong economic recovery afterward in Russia and other former Soviet Union countries. Before the crisis a banking failure arose owing to the coexistence of a lemons credit market and high government...

This paper provides a unified theory to explain the onset of the financial crisis in 1998 and the striking economic recovery in Russia and the former Soviet Union afterwards. Before the crisis, the banking sector in these economies was stuck in a development trap in which the banking sector is...

This paper explains both the onset of the financial crisis in 1998 and the striking economic recovery afterwards in Russia and other Former Soviet Union (FSU) economies. Before the crisis banks do not lend to the real sector of the economy and firms use non-bank finance, including trade credits...

This paper studies the connection between risk taking and executive compensation in financial institutions. A theoretical model of shareholders, debtholders, depositors, and an executive suggests that 1) in principle, excessive risk taking (in the form of risk shifting) may be addressed by...

We review the state of the sovereign debt literature and point out that the canonical model of sovereign debt cannot be easily reconciled with several facts about sovereign debt pricing and servicing. We identify and classify twenty puzzles. Some are well known and documented, others are less so...

This article examines the impact of Greece retroactively, via legislation, changing the terms in hundreds of billions of euros worth of Greek government bonds governed by domestic Greek law. As the abrogation of gold clauses in US government bonds by the US Congress in 1933 had been, the Greek...

The economic harm being caused by the novel coronavirus may soon result in multiple sovereign debtors moving into default territory. But the existing playbook for dealing with multi-sovereign emerging market debt crises is blank. The only debt crisis scenario we know is protracted...

It will be impossible to contain the global temperature rise to 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels unless emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) decarbonise much more rapidly. This policy brief examines the economic case for advanced-country financial support for...