This Economic Letter is based on a presentation Mark Spiegel prepared for a panel on "Optimal Currency Arrangements for Emerging Market Economies: The Experience of Latin America and Asia" organized by the Latin American and Asian Economics and Business Association on July 15, 2002, in Tokyo, Japan

This Economic Letter briefly reviews 11 papers that provide analytical perspectives and new empirical evidence on the causes of these crises as well as the appropriate policy responses. These papers, prepared for a conference sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco’s Center for...

My remarks concern monetary policymakers' opportunities and challenges in the face of the growing volume of international capital movements. The topic is currently of particular interest for two reasons: First, this year marks the tenth anniversary of the devastating Asian financial crisis, in...

We develop an overlapping generations model of the real estate market in which search frictions and a debt overhang combine to generate price persistence and illiquidity. Illiquidity stems from heterogeneity in agent real estate valuations. The variance of agent valuations determines how quickly...

This paper generalizes the Nelson-Phelps catch-up model of technology diffusion facilitated by levels of human capital. We allow for the possibility that the pattern of technology diffusion can be exponential, which would predict that nations would exhibit positive catch-up with the leader...

This Economic Letter summarizes the papers presented at the conference on "External Imbalances and Adjustment in the Pacific Basin" held at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco on September 22-23, 2005, under the sponsorship of the Bank's Center for Pacific Basin Studies.