In this note, we attempt to place the question of how we got to the global financial crisis that began as the US Subprime debacle in the summer of 2007 in the context of an international and historical comparative setting. It is of some poignancy that the “we” here refers to the wealthiest...

This paper introduces the concept of “debt intolerance,” which manifests itself in the extreme duress many emerging markets experience at debt levels that would seem manageable by advanced country standards. We argue that “safe” external debt-to-GNP thresholds for debt intolerant...

¿Es verdaderamente la crisis financiera 2007-2008 de las hipotecas sub-prime en EEUU, un fenómeno nuevo y diferente? Nuestro examen de los registros históricos más extensos encuentra asombrosas similitudes, tanto cuantitativas como cualitativas, con 18 crisis financieras en países...

We develop a novel system of reclassifying historical exchange rate regimes. One key difference between our study and previous classifications is that we employ monthly data on market-determined parallel exchange rates going back to 1946 for 153 countries. Our approach differs from the IMF...

Africa lags behind other regions in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI). In some circumstances, there are obvious explanations for the absence of FDI, such as a high incidence of war. In this paper, we examine the role that monetary and exchange rate policy may have played in explaining...

Lucas (1990) argued that it was a paradox that more capital does not flow from rich countries to poor countries. He rejected the standard explanation of expropriation risk and argued that paucity of capital flows to poor countries must instead be rooted in externalities in human capital...

The main theme of this paper is that debt cycles deeply entrenched in the process of development, and one must be careful about trusting magic elixirs that purport to finesse the problem entirely. Middle income countries nascent political and economic institutions, often simultaneously face...

This paper examines the depth and duration of the slump that invariably follows severe financial crises, which tend to be protracted affairs. We find that asset market collapses are deep and prolonged. On a peak-to-trough basis, real housing price declines average 35 percent stretched out over...

In a recent paper, we studied economic growth and inflation at different levels of government and external debt. The public discussion of our empirical strategy and results has been somewhat muddled. Here, we attempt to clarify matters, particularly with respect sample coverage (our evidence...

Throughout history, rich and poor countries alike have been lending, borrowing, crashing--and recovering--their way through an extraordinary range of financial crises. Each time, the experts have chimed, "this time is different"--claiming that the old rules of valuation no longer apply and that...