Why are investors rushing to purchase US government securities when the US is the epicentre of the financial crisis? This column attributes the paradox to key emerging market economies’ exchange practices, which require reserves most often invested in US government securities. America’s...

In this note, we attempt to place the question of how we got to the global financial crisis that began as the US Subprime debacle in the summer of 2007 in the context of an international and historical comparative setting. It is of some poignancy that the “we” here refers to the wealthiest...

In our recent paper, (Reinhart and Reinhart, 2010) we examine the behavior of real GDP (levels and growth rates), unemployment, inflation, bank credit, and real estate prices in a twenty one-year window surrounding selected adverse global and country-specific shocks or events. In this note, we...

This paper highlights the findings of some of the recent research on capital flows, credit booms, and their attendant consequences for asset prices, business cycles, financial crises and the interaction among these. The aim is to condense key results from the relevant literature and promote...

The global scope and depth of the 2007-2009 crisis is unprecedented in the post World War II period. As such, the most relevant comparison benchmark is the Great Depression, or the Great Contraction as dubbed by Friedman and Schwartz (1963). We highlight some of the similarities between these...

The widespread banking crises since 2007 among advanced economies and the “near” default of Greece in 2010 dashed the popular notion that rich countries have outgrown severe financial crises. Record or near-record declines in output accompanying these events signaled the end of the...

The financial press has often characterized the 2007-2008 United States subprime mess as a new breed of crisis. Indeed, this view often points to the international repercussions of the U.S.-based crisis as evidence that the globalization of financial portfolios has introduced new channels for...

This papers examines the empirical literature on currency crises and proposes a specific early warning system. This system involves monitoring the evolution of several indicators that tend to exhibit unusual behaviorin the periods preceding a crisis. When an indicator exceeds a certain threshold...