In this paper, we review three branches of theoretical literature on financial crises. The first one deals with banking crises originating from coordination failures among bank creditors. The second one deals with frictions in credit and interbank markets due to problems of moral hazard and...

The last few years have been characterized by great turmoil in the world’s financial markets; starting from the collapse of housing prices in the US, followed by the meltdown of leading financial institutions in the US and Europe, and then the ongoing challenge to the European monetary...

Foreign direct investors are more informed than foreign portfolio investors regarding changes in the prospects of their projects. This inside information, acquired through rigorous monitoring of management, enables foreign direct investors to manage their firms more efficiently. Having better...

The Paper develops a model of foreign direct investments (FDI) and foreign portfolio investments. FDI is characterized by hands-on management style that enables the owner to obtain relatively refined information about the productivity of the firm. This superiority, relative to portfolio...

This paper distinguishes between debt and equity flows in the presence of information asymmetry between the firm’s “insiders” and “outsiders” in a small open economy. It shows the inadequacy of capital investment because its scope is too narrow and the investment each firm makes is too...

We develop a simple information-based model of FDI flows. On the one hand, the abundance of ""intangible"" capital in specialized industries in the source countries, which presumably generates expertise in screening investment projects in the host countries, enhances FDI flows. On the other...