Interest-rate spreads fluctuate widely across time and countries. We characterize their behavior using some 3,200 quarterly observations for 21 advanced and 17 emerging economies since the early 1990s. Before the financial crisis, spreads are 10 times more volatile in emerging economies than in...

We show that a model with imperfectly forecastable changes in future productivity and an occasionally binding collateral constraint can match a set of stylized facts about "sudden stop" events. "Good" news about future productivity raises leverage during times of expansion, increasing the...

The pronounced and persistent impact of the global financial crisis of 2008 motivates our empirical analysis of the role of institutions and macroeconomic fundamentals on countries' adjustment to shocks. Our empirical analysis shows that the associations of growth level, growth volatility,...