The increase in trade, the increasing internationalization of production and the improvements in communications, together with the legalization of foreign currency instruments in a growing number of countries, have led to a de facto liberalization of the capital account. In line with the greater...

In considering how the euro will affect Sub-Saharan Africa, the authors examine the transmission channels through which the euro could affect economies in the region. They examine the risks and opportunities the euro presents for Sub-Saharan African countries. They especially examine the effects...

Mexico's economic crisis in December 1994 gave renewed importance to the issue of"spillover"or"contagion"effects in other emerging market economies (and their sensitivity to events in larger countries in the region.) They focus on how small open economies are affected by their neighbors'ecomomic...

The development of government bond markets and, in particular, their currency composition have recently received much interest, partly because of their relation with financial crises. The authors study the determinants of the size and currency composition of government bond markets for a panel...

The Argentine crisis has been variously blamed on fiscal imbalances, real overvaluation, and self-fulfilling investor pessimism triggering a capital flow reversal. The authors provide an encompassing assessment of the role of these and other ingredients in the recent macroeconomic collapse. They...

The author defines a financial crisis as a disruption in financial markets in which adverse selection and moral hazard problems become much worse, so that financial markets are unable to efficiently channel funds to those who have the most productive investment opportunities. As financial...

In the McKinnon and Shaw analysis, financial liberalization is defined to mean the establishment of higher interest rates that equate the demand for, and the supply of, savings. It expresses the views that higher interest rates will lead to increased savings and financial intermediation as well...

The paper tests for the relative importance of international capital market integration in determining interest rates in a broad sample of both industrial and developing countries. The recent turbulence in industrial country financial markets has underscored these concerns. One view holds that...

In the 1990s macroeconomic policies improved in a majority of developing countries, but the growth dividend from such improvement fell short of expectations, and a policy agenda focused on stability turned out to be associated with a multiplicity of financial crises. The authors take a...

This paper contains abstracts of Policy Research Working Paper series, numbers 2680 - 2753.