Using surveys of foreign exchange expectations, we document the emergence of a large gap between the beliefs of foreign banks and local-based institutions ahead of Brazil's 2002 presidential elections. That period was marked by a sudden stop in foreign capital flows and steep depreciation of...

Foreign investors play a key role in EME sovereign bond markets, in part because their portfolio flows are sensitive to bond returns and are therefore pro-cyclical in nature. This note discusses the implications of the framework proposed by So et al. (2019) which incorporates the risk that...

Foreign investors play a key role in sovereign bond markets in emerging market economies (EMEs), in part because their portfolio flows are sensitive to bond returns and are therefore pro-cyclical in nature. This note discusses the implications of the framework proposed by So et al (2019), which...

While there is still much disagreement on the causes underlying recent emerging markets' crises, one factor that most observers have agreed upon is that contracting "dollar" (foreign currency) denominated external debt - as opposed to domestic currency debt - created balance sheet mismatches...

Foreign portfolio flows constitute a key component of economic activity in small open economies such as Colombia. The dynamics of these flows are subject to the influence of both external (push) factors and domestic (pull) factors. Consequently, economic crises and episodes of financial distress...

We examine the risk and return characteristics of fundamental weighting schemes for developed, emerging, and frontier government bond markets; and compare these to market capitalization weighted indexes. We document positive excess returns for the investment grade sample only when currency risks...

Since 2002, spreads on emerging market sovereign debt have fallen to historical lows. Given the close links between sovereign spreads, capital flows to emerging markets, and economic growth, understanding the factors driving these spreads is very important. We address this issue in two stages....

In their recent provocative book Why Nations Fail, political scientist Daron Acemoglu and economist James A. Robinson contend that nations fail when they become “extractive” in their exercise of political power. According to the authors, the neoliberal system of market-centred competition...

Sovereign bond issuance by emerging market countries is growing in both volume and frequency. The global credit rating agencies have eagerly assigned ratings to the new issuers. Traditional approaches to measuring country risk, however, may fall short when applied to developing economies. What...