We build a model of emerging markets crises which features two types of collateral constraints. Firms in a domestic economy have limited borrowing capacity from international investors. They also have limited borrowing capacity with respect to each other. We study how the presence of and changes...

Most economies experience episodes of persistent real exchange rate appreciations, when the question arises whether there is a need for intervention to protect the export sector. In this paper we present a model of irreversible destruction where exchange rate intervention may be justified if the...

During the booms that precede crises in emerging economies, policy makers often struggle to limit capital flows and their expansionary consequences. The main policy tool for this task is sterilization - essentially a swap of international reserves for public bonds. However, there is an extensive...

There is increasing empirical evidence that creative destruction, driven by experimentation and the adoption of new products and processes when investment is sunk, is a core mechanism of development. Obstacles to this process are likely to be obstacles to the progress in standards of living....

Emerging market economies are fertile ground for the development of real estate and other financial bubbles. Despite these economies' significant growth potential, their corporate and government sectors do not generate the financial instruments to provide residents with adequate stores of value....

When factors enter into joint-production, they typically develop a degree of specificity with respect to each other. It is well known that, when combined with contracting difficulties, specificity gives rise to a Williamsonian 'Fundamental Transformation' from an ex-ante competitive relationship...

During the booms that precede crises in emerging economies, policymakers often struggle to limit capital flows and their expansionary consequences. The main policy tool for this task is a sterilization of capital inflows - essentially a swap of international reserves for public bonds. Despite...

The pace of industrial innovation and growth is shaped by many forces that interact in complicated ways. Profit-maximizing firms pursue new ideas to obtain market power, but the pursuit of the same goal by other means that even successful inventions art eventually superseded by others; this...

Emerging economies experience sudden stops in capital inflows. As we have argued in Caballero and Krishnamurthy (2002), having access to monetary policy during these sudden stops is useful, but mostly for insurance' rather than for aggregate demand reasons. In this environment, a central bank...

Latin American economies are exposed to substantial external vulnerability. Domestic imbalances and terms of trade shocks are often exacerbated by sudden stops of capital inflow. In this paper we explore ways of overcoming external vulnerability, drawing lessons from a detailed comparison of the...