One of the most serious problems that a central bank in an emerging market economy can face, is the sudden reversal of capital inflows. Hoarding international reserves can be used to smooth the impact of such reversals, but these reserves are seldom sufficient and always expensive to hold. In...

Even well managed emerging market economies are exposed to significant external risk, the bulk of which is financial. At a moment's notice, these economies may be required to reverse the capital inflows that have supported the preceding boom. While capital flows crises are sudden nonlinear...

Accommodative monetary policy during the financial crisis was instrumental in preventing a deeper recession. Views differ, however, on how long such measures should be kept in place. At the heart of this debate is the notion that a protracted period of policy accommodation could create...

We follow a representative panel of millions of consumers in the U.S. from 2007 to 2017 and document several facts on the long-term effects of the Great Recession. There were about six million foreclosures in the ten-year period after Lehman's collapse. Owners of multiple homes accounted for 25%...

The global financial crisis (2008-09) led to a sharp contraction in both Euro Area (EA) and US real activity, and was followed by a long-lasting slump. However, the post-crisis adjustment in the EA and the US shows striking differences—in particular, the EA slump has been markedly more...

The global financial crisis (2008-09) led to a sharp contraction in both Euro Area (EA) and US real activity, and was followed by a long-lasting slump. However, the post-crisis adjustment in the EA and the US shows striking differences - in particular, the EA slump has been markedly more...

It is well known fact that all good things, as also bad things, come to an end and business cycles pass through good and bad economic times. Economically 2010 was a year of transition from economic recession to recovery. Economies were improving in some countries and industries were showing...

This paper aims an empirical investigation of uncertainty in the Euro Zone as well as the US. For this purpose I conduct a factor analysis of uncertainty measures starting in 2001 until the end of 2011. I use survey-based data provided by the ECB and the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia as...

Britain's suspension of gold convertibility in September 1931 was one of the most surprising and significant events in the history of the global financial system. Whereas London had traditionally been the center of the international gold standard, in the 1930s Britain led the world into the era...

Frédéric Bastiat (1801-1850) was a French thinker who did most of his writing in the last six years of his life. One of his major contributions to economic thought was his application of opportunity cost to a wide range of economic policies. The present paper uses the Bastiat approach to...