The financial assistance the International Monetary Fund provides is expected to catalyze private capital flows. Such a catalytic effect has, however, proven empirically elusive. This paper deviates from the standard approach based on the net capital inflow to study instead the Fund's catalytic...

This study quantifies the importance of a Global Financial Cycle (GFCy) for capital flows. We use capital flow data dis-aggregated by direction and type between 1990Q1 and 2015Q5 for 85 countries, and conventional techniques, models and metrics. Since the GFCy is an unobservable concept, we use...

This paper assesses the international comovement of gross capital inflows and outflows using a two-level factor model. Among advanced and emerging countries, capital flows exhibit strong commonality: common (global and country group-specific) factors account, on average, for close to half of...

We evaluate how vulnerable the emerging markets are to sudden stops, that is, capital inflow reversals, using panel data for 12 emerging economies for the period 1976-2002 that experienced such reversals. We investigate the impact of sudden stops on the macroeconomic indicators of economic...

This paper compares the behaviour of banks with that of non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs) in the intermediation of portfolio flows to emerging market economies (EMEs). Our analysis shows that investment funds, a key component of NBFIs, tend to reduce their exposure to EMEs more than banks...

How does sovereign risk affect investors' behavior? We answer this question using a novel database that combines sovereign default probabilities for 27 developed and emerging markets with monthly data on the portfolios of individual bond mutual funds. We first show that changes in yields do not...

Financial assistance provided by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is supposed to unlock other financing, acting as a catalyst for private capital flows. The empirical evidence of the presence of such a catalytic effect has, however, been mixed. This paper shows that a possible explanation...

This paper analyzes the behavior of gross capital inflows across 34 emerging markets (EMs), including eight Asian economies. We first confirm that aggregate inflows to EMs comove considerably. Three findings are reported: (i) the aggregate comovement conceals significant heterogeneity across...

This study quantifies the importance of a Global Financial Cycle (GFCy) for capital flows. We use capital flow data disaggregated by direction and type between Q1 1990 and Q4 2015 for 85 countries, and conventional techniques, models and metrics. Since the GFCy is an unobservable concept, we use...

This paper analyzes the behavior of gross capital inflows across 34 emerging markets (EMs). We first confirm that aggregate inflows to EMs co-move considerably. We then report three findings: (i) the aggregate co-movement conceals significant heterogeneity across asset types as only bank-related...