In a large panel of countries, we find that less liquid countries are more likely to default on their external debt. Specifically, for given total external debt, the probability of a crisis increases with the proportion of short-term debt and debt service coming due and decreases with foreign...

Exploiting the analogy with the private provision of a public good, this paper studies debt restructuring with an arbitrary number of creditors using mechanism design.

This paper develops a theoretical model in which firms may choose multiple banking relationships to reduce the risk that financing will be denied by ‘relationship banks’ should the latter experience liquidity problems and refuse to roll over lines of credit. The inability to refinance from...

A rapidly growing empirical literature is studying the causes and consequences of bank fragility in contemporary economies. The paper reviews the two basic methodologies adopted in cross-country empirical studies, the signals approach and the multivariate probability model, and their application...

Several countries in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe used a rich set of prudential instruments in response to last decade’s credit and housing boom and bust cycles. We collect detailed information on these policy measures in a comprehensive database covering 16 countries at a...