The experience of a large number of countries since the mid-1970s has demonstrated the limited potential for activist monetary and fiscal policies to influence real macroeconomic performance on a sustained basis. Given the central role of the financial sector in pricing and allocating capital...

The basic worldwide financial safety net architecture provides for a system of similar institutions: a lender of last resort, deposit insurance, and prudential regulation. In countries whose banking systems suffer seriously from negative capital positions and overbanking, such as in some Latin...

There is growing discontent with the conventional wisdom concerning economic policy. The unhappy fact seems to be that a stable macroeconomic environment may be necessary but not sufficient to coax the desired outcomes from liberalized financial systems. This paper reviews several promising...