We analyze banking crises using a panel of macroeconomic and financial data for more than one hundred developing countries from 1975 through 1992. We find that banking crises in emerging markets are strongly associated with adverse external conditions. In particular Northern interest rates are...

This paper is concerned with the fact that the incidence of speculative attacks tends to be temporally correlated; that is, currency crises appear to pass contagiously from one country to another. The paper provides a survey of the theoretical literature, and analyzes the contagious nature of...

This paper presents an empirical analysis of speculative attacks on pegged exchange rates in 22 countries between 1967 and 1992. We define speculative attacks or crises as large movements in exchange rates, interest rates, and international reserves. We develop stylized facts concerning the...

We review the literature on resolving bank and corporate sector crises to identify government policies that affect the depth of a crisis and the ease and sustainability of recovery, and to analyze their fiscal cost. A consistent framework - including sufficient resources for loss-absorption and...

This paper provides answers to two questions. The first question is which international monetary regime is best for economic performance? One based on fixed exchange rates: including the gold standard and its variants? Adjustable peg regimes such as the Bretton Woods system and the European...

As communication costs fall, foreign embassies and consulates have lost much of their role in decision-making and information-gathering. Accordingly, foreign services are increasingly marketing themselves as agents of export promotion. I investigate whether exports are in fact systematically...

I examine the hypothesis that membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its predecessor the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) has increased the stability and predictability of trade flows. I use a large data set covering annual bilateral trade flows between over 175...

Larger data sets, with more countries and a longer span of time, exhibit systematically larger effects of European monetary union on trade. I establish this stylized fact with meta-analysis and confirm it by estimating a plain-vanilla gravity model. I then explain this finding by examining...

In this paper I quantify a gain that a country receives when its global influence is considered to be admirable by others. I use a standard gravity model of bilateral exports, a panel of data from 2006 through 2013, and an annual survey conducted for the BBC by GlobeScan which asks people in up...

This paper explores the relationship between inflation and the existence of a publicly-traded, long-maturity, nominal, domestic-currency bond market. Bond holders suffer from inflation and could be a potent anti-inflationary force; I ask whether their presence is apparent empirically. I use a...