Comment on: Suzanne Duryea, Gustavo Márquez, Carmen Pagés, and Stefano Scarpetta, who review evidence on labor market mobility in nine countries. Three countries come from Latin America, while the remainder are transition economies in Eastern Europe. The period of study ranges from as little...

Exchange rate-based stabilization programs in chronic-inflation countries have often been accompanied by an initial expansion of private consumption followed by a contraction. This consumption cycle has been attributed to lack of credibility, in the sense that the public views the reduction in...

From Hume’s discussion of the specie-flow mechanism under the gold standard to the Keynes-Ohlin debate on the transfer problem associated with German reparations after the First World War, understanding the flow of capital across national borders has been central to international economics. My...

Many emerging market countries have suffered financial crises. One view blames soft pegs for these crises. Adherents to that view suggest that countries move to corner solutions--hard pegs or floating exchange rates. We analyze the behavior of exchange rates, reserves, and interest rates to...

Motivated by the severe Asian crisis of 1997, Giancarlo Corsetti, Paolo Pesenti, and Nouriel Roubini make a fine contribution to the growing literature that analyzes the symptoms of a country's vulnerability to currency crises. While the sample of countries covered in the empirical analysis...

This paper summarizes “The Center and the Periphery: The Globalization of Financial Shocks," which presents a new approach to measure and understand systemic financial turbulences. We defined two measures of systemic disturbances: weak- and strong-form globalization and created the...

In this introductory chapter, we begin with a brief overview of the issues that have Motivated our research into the role of credit ratings and credit rating agencies in the global financial system. We then summarize the main themes in each of the papers and highlight the major findings. In the...

In the wake of the Mexican and Asian currency turmoil, the subject of financial crises has come to the forefront of academic and policy discussions. This paper analyzes the links between banking and currency crises. We find that: problems in the banking sector typically precede a currency...

The Asian crisis took place against a background of exchange rate regimes that were characterized as soft pegs. This has led many analysts to conclude that “the peg did it” and that emerging markets (EMs) should “just say no” to pegged exchange rates. We present evidence that EMs are...

Many emerging market countries have suffered financial crises. One view blames soft pegs for these crises. Adherents to that view suggest that countries move to corner solutions--hard pegs or floating exchange rates. We analyze the behavior of exchange rates, reserves, and interest rates to...