In this report we examine time-varying correlations of asset returns using the Dynamic Conditional Correlation (DCC) models, recently proposed by Engle (2002), that are estimated by a two-step procedure. First, we conclude that correlations vary considerably over time. Secondly, the conditional...

We investigate the relationship between a country's domestic financial development and the (composition of its) net foreign asset position using a pooled mean group estimator and data for 51 countries during the period 1970-2007. The results show that financial development reduces a country's...

In the nineties, the number of currency crises has been high, both in the industrial world and among emerging countries. An important characteristic of many of these crises is that they started in one country but very soon affected others as well. Currency crises seemed to be contagious. In this...

Population aging and pension reform will have profound effects on international capital markets. First, demographic change alters the time path of aggregate savings within each country. Second, this process may be amplified when a pension reform shifts old-age provision towards more pre-funding....

The purpose of this Research Memorandum is to assess whether concepts from psychological theory may be useful in explaining herding and crises in financial markets. The conclusion is that the theory of cognitive dissonance, which assumes that the human brain seeks and processes information in a...

We show that, complementary to trade and financial linkages, the strength of the banking sector helps explain the transmission of currency crises. Specifically, we demonstrate that the Mexican, Thai, and Russian crises predominantly spread to countries with weaknesses in their banking sectors....

d above may also more fully apply to the Thai case, since the experience of the other countries in the region is probably tainted by contagion effects of the Thai baht crisis (Baig and Goldfajn 1999).

This paper studies the impact of explicit deposit insurance on market discipline in a framework that resembles a natural experiment. We improve upon previous studies by exploiting a unique combination of country-specific circumstances, design features, and data availability that allows us to...

Although cross-border bank lending has fallen sharply since the crisis, extending our bank ownership database from 1995-2009 up to 2013 shows only limited retrenchment in foreign bank presence. While banks from OECD countries reduced their foreign presence (but still represent 89% of foreign...

There are numerous ways to indicate the degree of banking competition across countries. Antitrust authorities rely on the structure-conduct-performance paradigm while academics prefer price mark-ups (Lerner index) or correlations of input costs with output prices (H-statistic). These measures...