Changes in sovereign debt ratings and outlooks affect financial markets in emerging economies. They affect not only the instrument being rated (bonds) but also stocks. They directly impact the markets of the countries rated and generate cross-country contagion. The effects of rating and outlook...

The authors study whether capital controls affect the link between domestic and foreign stock market prices and interest rates. To examine the characteristics of international market integration and the effects of capital controls in the short and long run, they apply band-pass filter techniques...

We study the pattern of volatility of gross issuance in international capital markets since 1980. We find several short-lived episodes of high volatility. Over the long run, however, volatility has declined, suggesting that international financial integration has not made financial markets more...

This paper studies how financial turbulence in emerging market countries can spread across borders. We construct indices of “financial globalization” and evaluate the repercussions of turmoil in three emerging markets that experienced financial crises in the late 1990s: Brazil, Russia, and...

The authors' earlier work on financial crises suggested that economies behave differently on the eve of crises (see Kaminsky and Reinhart, 1996). Typically, financial crises occur as an economy enters a recession that follows a prolonged boom in economic activity fueled by credit creation and...

In this paper, we analyze the extent to which past financial crises share common characteristics in Latin America, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. We examine the recent crises in Asia and in Latin America, in particular their severity, to assess whether the considerable historical differences...

Over the past two hundred years -- some would argue even longer -- financial events, such as the devaluation of a currency or an announcement of default, have been capable of triggering an immediate adverse chain reaction among countries within a region and in some cases across regions. The...