At the spring 2003 meetings of the IMF and World Bank it was decided to push ahead with the contractual approach to smoothing the process of sovereign debt restructuring by encouraging the more widespread use of collective action clauses (CACs) in international bonds. This decision was shaped by...

We analyze banking crises using a panel of macroeconomic and financial data for more than 100 developing countries from 1975 through 1992. We find that banking crises in emerging markets are strongly associated with adverse external conditions. In particular, high Northern interest rates are...

The experience of the 1990s renewed economists' interest in the role of credit in macroeconomic fluctuations. The locus classicus of the credit-boom view of economic cycles is the expansion of the 1920s and the Great Depression. In this paper we ask how well quantitative measures of the credit...

Asia's underdeveloped bond markets and dependence on bank finance have been topics of concern since the crisis of 1997-98. In this paper we document that the slow development of Asian bond markets is a phenomenon with multiple dimensions. Larger country size, stronger institutions, less volatile...

We use data on the extent to which residents of one country hold the bonds of issuers resident in another as a measure of financial integration or interrelatedness, asking how Asia compares with Europe and Latin America and with the base case in which the purchaser and issuer of the bonds reside...

The IMF attempts to stabilize private capital flows to emerging markets by providing public monitoring and emergency finance. In analyzing its role we contrast cases where banks and bondholders do the lending. Banks have a natural advantage in monitoring and creditor coordination, while bonds...

At the April 2003 meeting of the International Monetary and Financial Committees, it was decided to further encourage the contractual approach to smoothing the process of sovereign debt restructuring by encouraging the more widespread use of collective action clauses (CACs) in international...

In this paper we analyze data on nearly 1,000 developing-country bonds issued in the years 1991-96 the recent episode of heavy reliance on bonded debt. We analyze both the issue decision of debtors and the pricing decision of investors, minimizing selectivity bias by treating the two issues...

We use data on the extent to which residents of one country hold the bonds of issuers resident in another as a measure of financial integration or interrelatedness, asking how Asia compares with Europe and Latin America and with the base case in which the purchaser and issuer of the bonds reside...