We analyze the main forces affecting financial system pro-cyclicality (the fact that developments in the financial sector can amplify business cycle fluctuations). We first review some major structural developments in financial markets that may influence pro-cyclicality and that have been...

We characterize asset return linkages during periods of stress by an extremal dependence measure. Contrary to correlation analysis, this nonparametric measure is not predisposed toward the normal distribution and can allow for nonlinear relationships. Our estimates for the G-5 countries suggest...

This paper examines volatility spillovers from changes in the size of the balance sheets of the Federal Reserve (FED) and European Central Bank (ECB) to emerging market economies (EMEs) from 2003 to 2014. We find that EME bond markets are most susceptible to positive volatility spillovers from...

We introduce external risks, in the form of shocks to the level and volatility of world interest rates, into a small open economy model subject to the risk of sudden stops—large recessions together with abrupt reversals in capital inflows| and characterize optimal macroprudential policy in...

This paper attempts to borrow the tradition of estimating policy reaction functions in monetary policy literature and apply it to capital controls policy literature. Using a novel weekly dataset on capital controls policy actions in 21 emerging economies over the period 1 January 2001 to 31...

We characterize asset return linkages during periods of stress by an extremal dependence measure. Contrary to correlation analysis, this nonparametric measure is not predisposed toward the normal distribution and can allow for nonlinear relationships. Our estimates for the G-5 countries suggest...

Using a generalized vector autoregressive framework in which forecast-error variance decompositions are invariant to variable ordering, we propose measures of both total and directional volatility spillovers. We use our methods to characterize daily volatility spillovers across U.S. stock, bond,...

This would seem an opportune moment to reshape banking systems in the Americas. But any effort to rethink and improve banking must acknowledge three major barriers. The first is a crisis of vision: there has been too little consideration of what kind of banking system would work best for...

The seminal Barro (2006) closed-economy model of the equity risk premium in the presence of extreme events ("disasters") allowed for leverage in the form of risky corporate debt which defaulted only in states when the Government defaulted on its debt. The probability of default was therefore...

Many sovereign defaults have occurred worldwide over the past 200 years. An analysis of 321 sovereign debt restructurings since 1815 shows that foreign private and institutional investor losses were 43 percent on average. Notably, beginning in the 1970s, several debt exchanges have increasingly...