Does short-term debt increase vulnerability to financial crisis, or does short-term debt reflect – rather than cause – the incipient crisis? We study the role that short-term debt played in the collapse of the East Asian financial sector in 1997–1998. We alleviate concerns about the...

Does short-term debt increase vulnerability to financial crisis, or does short-term debt reflect -- rather than cause -- the incipient crisis? We study the role that short-term debt played in the collapse of the East Asian financial sector in 1997-1998. We alleviate concerns about the...

Does short-term debt increase vulnerability to financial crisis, or does causality go the other way, so that short term debt reflects rather than causes the incipient crisis? We approach this question empirically by examining the banking sector in five East Asian economies that were affected by...

We present evidence showing the existence of stable cointegrating vectors connecting four important variables in the U.S. and global oil markets: oil production, stocks of crude oil, the real price of oil, and broad measures of income. Our data are monthly, and go back to the 1930s, split into...

We test for changes in price behavior in the longest crude oil price series available (1861-2008). We find strong evidence for changes in persistence and in volatility of price across three well defined periods. We argue that historically, the real price of oil has tended to be highly persistent...

We test for changes in price behavior in the longest crude oil price series available (1861-2008). We find strong evidence for changes in persistence and in volatility of price across three well defined periods. We argue that historically, the real price of oil has tended to be highly persistent...

Pricing-to-market (PTM), the practice of differentiating the price of a good across markets, is commonly attributed to differential distribution and border costs. In this paper we show that some of this price differentiation is sustained by manufacturers selling different versions of an...

This paper studies the limitations of monetary policy in stimulating credit and investment. We show that, under certain circumstances, unconventional monetary policies fail in that liquidity injections into the banking sector are hoarded and not lent out. We use the term "credit traps" to...

This paper identifies a new channel through which bankrupt firms impose negative externalities on non-bankrupt peers. The bankruptcy and liquidation of a retail chain weakens the economies of agglomeration in any given local area, reducing the attractiveness of retail centers for remaining...

There is mounting evidence of the influence of personal characteristics of CEOs on corporate outcomes. In this paper we analyze the relation between military service of CEOs and managerial decisions, financial policies, and corporate outcomes. Exploiting exogenous variation in the propensity to...