The international transmission of shocks in the global financial system has always been an important issue for policy makers. Different types of foreign shocks have different effects and policy implications. In this paper, we examine the effects of the recent U.S. financial crisis and the...

This paper investigates why China's leaders were unable to halt the mounting crisis in funding local government from 2009. The analysis traces a long history of co-option of the banking system by local officials. The national leadership was obstructed in monitoring and controlling the escalating...

This report identifies a set of policy lessons for China today drawn from the experience of financial deregulation, financial crisis and recovery in Scandinavia during the period 1985-2000. Although there are considerable differences between the huge Chinese economy and the small Nordic...

The paper studies the interactions between the U.S. and four East Asian markets. The focus is on the change in the information structure/flow between these markets triggered by the 1997 Asian financial crisis. It is shown that the information structure during the crisis period was different from...

In this paper we explore the 'Mrs.Machlup's Wardrobe' hypothesis to understand the growing trend of Latin American economies amassing large stocks of international reserves. Using annual data from 1980 to 2007, we examine the relevance of the argument that economies continue to add to their...

This paper studies whether the volume and composition of capital flows affect the degree of credit crunch during the 2007-2009 crisis. Using data on 3823 firms in 24 emerging countries, we find that, on average, the decline in stock prices was more severe for firms that are intrinsically more...

"Everybody talks about financial innovation, but (almost) nobody empirically tests hypotheses about it." Frame and White (2004) The financial turmoil from 2007 onwards has spurred renewed debates on the "bright" and "dark" sides of financial innovation. Using bank-, industry- and country-level...

In this paper we assess the effects of bond financing on firms' survival during the 1997-98 Asian crisis. Using a novel database covering the period 1995 to 2007 for five Asian economies most affected by the crisis - Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand - we find strong evidence...

The US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank have adopted a number of measures, including aggressive policy rate cuts, to ease the liquidity crunch in the financial markets following the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Using high frequency spot and forward foreign exchange and interest rate...