We show that political booms, measured by the rise in governments' popularity, predict financial crises above and beyond other better-known early warning indicators, such as credit booms. This predictive power, however, only holds in emerging economies. We show that governments in emerging...

Since a series of crisis events after 2007, the discussion about the adjustment channels of current account imbalances has been revived. We discuss the effectiveness of exchange rates versus macroeconomic policies to rebalance current accounts for a set of 86 mainly emerging market economies. We...

Sovereign debt restructurings can be implemented preemptively - prior to a payment default. We code a comprehensive new dataset and find that preemptive restructurings (i) are frequent (38% of all deals 1978-2010), (ii) have lower haircuts, (iii) are quicker to negotiate, and (iv) see lower...

This paper explores the link between monetary policies of large industrial countries and international credit cycles. Based on an overinvestment framework, we show that in the prevailing asymmetric world monetary system, monetary policies of large centre countries can fuel credit booms in...

This paper constructs new indicators of liquidity for equity, bond and money markets in major advanced and emerging market countries, documents their evolution and co-movements, and assesses the extent to which such measures are determinants of selected spreads and proxy measures of countries'...

This paper examines global (mature market) and regional (emerging market) spillovers in local emerging stock markets. Tri-variate VAR GARCH(1,1)-in-mean models are estimated for 41 emerging market economies (EMEs) in Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. The models capture a range of...

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is in the process of re-inventing itself with bilateral and multilateral surveillance emerging as a key function. The paper analyses how IMF surveillance announcements may be influenced by political power that member countries exert at the IMF. First, we...

Remittances have greatly increased during recent years, becoming an important and reliable source of funds for many developing countries. Therefore, there is a strong incentive for receiving countries to attract more remittances, especially through formal channels that turn to be either less...

Given buoyant capital inflows and managed exchange rates the majority of emerging market central banks have continued to accumulate massive foreign reserves. If left unsterilized, the liquidity expansion can threaten domestic macroeconomic stability. To contain domestic inflation these central...