Trade first and trade fast: a duration analysis of recovery from currency crisis

Over the last three decades, durations of recovery of output from contractionary currency crises have shown much variation both within and across countries. Using a dataset comprising of both developing and industrial countries, this paper examines the importance of economic fundamentals, international trade and liberalized capital account in determining the speed of recovery from such crises. We found that poor macroeconomic fundamentals and capital account liberalization have no significant effect on duration of recovery. However, all trade related variables were found to be significant. Our results indicate the preeminence of export led recovery.