Central banks’ foreign exchange holdings have increased significantly in the recent past. This article explains this development as a result of the liberalisation of international capital markets. First, central banks accumulate reserves in order to protect the economy from detrimental effects...

The prime task of modelling cross-market contagion is to predict the imminence of a pestilent currency crisis. Empirical models are developed here to study the roles and channels of contagion in exchange rate volatilities, in ways which are as economically sound and econometrically simple as...

This paper investigates the short-run dynamic impact of foreign currency shocks on the deviations of Latvian <i>lats</i> vis-à-vis US <i>dollar</i> market spot rate from the parity set via <i>lats'</i> peg to SDR for the period from 1994 to 2000. The analysis is based on the standard theoretical model of dynamic...

This paper analyzes the relationship among the prices of natural resources, returns on equity and nominal exchange rates of the developed countries where primary commodities are an important share of exports: Australia, Canada and New Zealand. It is found that the portfolio rebalancing motive of...

A model of external crises is developed focusing on the interaction between liquidity creation by financial intermediaries and foreign exchange collapses. The intermediaries' role of transforming maturities is shown to result in larger movements of capital and a higher probability of crises....

Abstract I consider a small open economy model where international financial markets are imperfect and the exchange rate is determined by capital flows. I use this framework to study the effects of portfolio flow shocks, derive the optimal foreign exchange intervention policy, and...

We investigate if capital account openness has played a major role in the evolution of global imbalances on the period 1980-2003. We estimate, with panel regression techniques, the impact of capital account openness on medium run current account imbalances for industrialized and emerging...

The composition of Japan's current account balance has changed over time, with an increasing income balance primarily reflecting a growing net foreign asset position and higher corporate saving. A comparison of Japan's income balance with peer countries highlights: (i) relatively high yields on...

Countries with intermediate levels of institutional quality suffer larger output contractions following sudden stops of capital inflows than less developed nations. However, countries with strong institutions seldom experience significant falls in output after capital flow reversals. We...

This paper adopts a flexible framework to assess both short- and long-run business cycle linkages between six Latin American (LA) countries and the four largest economies in the world (namely the US, the Euro area, Japan and China) over the period 1980:I-2011:IV. The result indicate that within...