The recent financial crises, especially the debt crisis in Asia, have led to questions su ch as: what are their causes, what is an excessive debt and how vulnerable is an economy to external shocks? We develop an economic model of international finance and debt based upon two sources of...

Building on the vast literature, this paper focuses on the role of the structure of the international investment position (IIP) in affecting countries' external vulnerabilities. Using a sample of 73 advanced and emerging economies and new database on the IIP's currency composition, we find that...

This paper assesses the vulnerability of Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) economies to external crises. It shows that while the average LAC economy has made significant strides to reduce vulnerability to crises to its historical minimum, there is still considerable room for improvement,...

We use stochastic optimal control-dynamic programming (DP) to derive the optimal foreign debt/net worth, consumption/net worth, current account/net worth, and endogenous growth rate in an open economy. Unlike the literature that uses an Intertemporal Budget Constraint (IBC) or the Maximum...