Severe flight to quality episodes involve uncertainty about the environment, not only risk about asset payoffs. The uncertainty is triggered by unusual events and untested financial innovations that lead agents to question their worldview. We present a model of crises and central bank policy...

The entire difference between a mild downturn and a devastating crisis is the occurrence of sharp fire sales of domestic assets and possibly foreign exchange and the ensuing collapse in the balance sheets of both the financial and nonfinancial sector. Why and how do such crises materialize? And...

We propose that the limited financial development of emerging markets is a significant factor behind the large share of dollar-denominated external debt present in these markets. We show that when financial constraints affect borrowing and lending between domestic agents, agents undervalue...

During the booms that invariably precede crises in emerging economies, policy makers often struggle to limit capital flows and their expansionary consequences. The main policy tool for this task is sterilization --essentially a swap of international reserves for public bonds. However, there is...