An influential explanation for the recent rise in the US current account deficit is the boom in US productivity. As US productivity surged in the mid-1990s, capital was attracted to the US to take advantage of the higher real returns. Using a two-country general-equilibrium model, this paper...

The paper seeks to determine whether high interest rates have had the effect of appreciating nominal exchange rates in three Asian countries. The authors use high-frequency data for Korea, Malaysia, and Thailand during the recent crisis and its aftermath to examine the relationship between the...

This paper investigates the changing pattern and efficacy of sterilization within emerging market countries as they liberalize markets and integrate with the world economy. We estimate the marginal propensity to sterilize foreign asset accumulation associated with net balance of payments...

The paper studies financial integration in the presence of moral hazard, where banks may mitigate excessive risk by costly monitoring. The author shows that a drop in banks" cost of funds, less efficient intermediation technology, higher macroeconomic volatility, and a more generous deposit...

This paper investigates changes in cultural consumption patterns for a low-concentration industry: wine and beer. Using data on 38 countries from 1963-2000, there is clear convergence in the consumption of wine relative to beer between 1963 and 2000. Convergence occurs even more quickly within...

This paper studies the effects of external shocks on bank lending spreads and output fluctuations in Argentina during the early 1990s. The first part presents the analytical framework. The second presents a VAR model that relates bank lending spreads, the cyclical component of output, the real...