This paper studies sharp reductions in current account deficits and large exchange rate depreciations in low- and middle-income countries. It examines which factors help predict the occurrence of a reversal or a currency crisis, and how these events affect macroeconomic performance. It finds...

The currency crises of the 1990s all exhibit a divergence of the nominal and the real exchange rate together with an increase in the negative current account. The nominal rate does not reflect inflation differences fully and the ensuing real appreciation leads to a negative current account. This...

This paper develops a new methodology to infer the de facto exchange rate regime, based on a structural VAR model with sign restrictions. The methodology is applied to data from eleven emerging markets that recently experienced a currency crisis. The main findings are: (1) to be consistent with...

Prevailing views suggest that short-term, unhedged foreign borrowing and crony capitalism, in combination with a weak financial system and lack of transparency may lie at the heart of the Asian financial crisis of 1997. Although the crisis first began in Thailand, it quickly spread to the rest...

While virtually all modern models of exchange rate crises recognise that the decision to abandon an exchange rate peg depends on how harshly policy makers are willing to defend the regime, they virtually never model how the exchange rate is defended. In this paper we incorporate both the...

In this paper, I give a detailed account of the creation and the evolution of Korea Investment Corporation (KIC) – a sovereign wealth fund established in 2005 by the Korean government. In doing so, I highlight three of its unique features. First, the case of KIC effectively shows the problem...

Iceland experienced a significant financial meltdown and subsequent economic downturn after the 2008/2009 financial crisis struck the country. It had been the worst crisis ever experienced by a small country from the late 20th century onwards. Since 1980s, Iceland's macroeconomic stability had...

This study seeks to demonstrate that the identification of crisis episodes based on commonly applied exchange market pressure (EMP) indices, namely, Eichengreen, Rose and Wyplosz (1995), Sachs, Tornell and Velasco (1996), and Kaminsky, Lizondo and Reinhart (1998) are highly sensitive to the...

Early constructions of a single crisis index known as the exchange market pressure (EMP) index have largely been based on the fluctuations of the real or nominal exchange rate of a currency against the US dollar ---the most commonly accepted anchor currency in the global market. Hardly any...