Raghuram Rajan was one of the few economists who warned of the global financial crisis before it hit. Rajan shows how the individual choices that collectively brought about the economic meltdown--made by bankers, government officials, and ordinary homeowners--were rational responses to a flawed...

Aus der Finanzkrise ist über die Währungskrise längst eine weltweite Bedrohung des Finanzsystems geworden. Die akuten Brandherde der globalen Finanzstruktur scheinen zwar immer wieder unter Kontrolle, doch unter der Oberfläche brodelt es weiter. Genau hier setzt mit Raghuram Rajan einer der...

Initial inequality in endowments and opportunities, together with low average levels of endowments, can create constituencies in a society that combine to paralyze reforms, even though the status quo hurts them collectively. Each constituency prefers reforms that expand its opportunities, but in...

Developments in the financial sector have led to an expansion in its ability to spread risks. The increase in the risk bearing capacity of economies, as well as in actual risk taking, has led to a range of financial transactions that hitherto were not possible, and has created much greater...

Emerging markets do not handle adverse shocks well. In this paper, I will outline an explanation of why emerging markets are so fragile, and why they may adopt contractual mechanisms -- such as a dollarized banking system -- that increase their fragility. I draw on this analysis to explain why...