This paper presents an analytical overview of recent contributions to the literature on the policy implications of capital flows in emerging and developing countries, focusing specifically on capital inflows as well as on the links between inflows and subsequent capital-flow reversals. The...

The so-called "European model" of market integration has evolved over many decades. In particular, the original plan to integrate Europe economically via a progressive program of harmonizing national legislation has, particularly in the area of financial markets, given way to a radical...

In this post-modern world of high capital mobility, countries are being disciplined by the anonymous capital market. One view of the situation -perhaps the prevalent view among economists- is that Wall Street gets into your hair because you are running an unsustainable economic program and...

This background paper of the report MIF/GN-78-4 "Evaluation of MIF Projects - Financial Reform and Capital Markets", November 2002, seeks to give the reader an appreciation of the enormous difficulties under which the MIF began operations. At the beginning of the 1990s, financial legislation,...

This issue is an editorial re-launch of the IDB's Integration & Trade Journal. This new stage in the Journal's development coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Bank. The introduction as written by IDB President Moreno outlines his own vision of how the IDB intends to confront the...

While public debt ratios in Latin America increased in 2009 amid the global financial crisis, they remain below levels reached following the Asian and Russian crises of the late 1990s. Moreover, debt composition has continued to shift towards "safer" debt (domestic debt with a higher prevalence...

International financial linkages, particularly through global bank flows, generate important questions about the consequences for economic and financial stability, including the ability of countries to conduct autonomous monetary policy. I address the monetary autonomy issue in the context of...