The paper shows that common fiscal rules, such as a limit to the deficit-output ratio, induce an “escape clause”–type fiscal policy, similar to that studied for monetary policy by Flood and Isard (1988 and 1989) and Lohmann (1992): The government resorts to an active stabilization (for...

This paper uses binary classification trees (BCTs) to predict capital account crises. BCTs successively compare candidate variables and thresholds to split the data into two subsamples, allowing for a large number of indicators to be considered and complex interactions to emerge in a way that...