Before the currency crisis of 1997-1998, East Asian financial intermediaries borrowed heavily in international markets. During the crisis, the intermediaries’ stock market value declined sharply, and a sizable fraction of the institutions were closed or nationalized. We find that 1) the...

This paper presents a simple model of debt contracts in order to analyze the conditions under which domestic residents would choose to denominate debts in ``dollars''. In the model, borrowers are producers of non-traded goods, and subject to shocks on prices. The real exchange rate varies in...

The paper analyzes the choice of an exchange rate regime for a small open economy indebted in foreign currency, incorporating the ¯nancial accelerator. Conventional wisdom suggests that floating regimes should insulate the economy from real shocks. I show that this result depends on the...