This paper attempts to determine the extent to which common external shocks explain simultaneous currency crises. We define crises on a country by country basis using a new criterion that takes into account variations in the volatility of exchange rates over time and across countries. Using a...

The enormity of the current financial collapse, widely described as a bursting bubble, raises the question whether the crisis could have been predicted, possibly permitting action to offset its effects. In the first of two Economic Letters on the subject, we look at developments in the United...

This Economic Letter briefly reviews 11 papers that provide analytical perspectives and new empirical evidence on the causes of these crises as well as the appropriate policy responses. These papers, prepared for a conference sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco’s Center for...

External debt increases the vulnerability of indebted emerging market economies to macroeconomic volatility and financial crises. Capital account reversals often lead sovereign debt repayment crises that are only resolved after prolonged and difficult debt restructuring. Foreign indebtedness...

Currency crises are usually associated with large nominal and real depreciations. In some countries depreciations are perceived to be very costly (“fear of floating”). In this paper we try to understand the reasons behind this fear. We first look at episodes of currency crises in the 1990s...

This paper studies a version of Obstfeld's (1997) "escape clause" model. The model is calibrated to produce three rational expectations equilibria. Two of these equilibria are E-stable in the sense of Evans (1985), and one is unstable. Dynamics are introduced by assuming that agents must learn...

This paper models the causes of the 2008 financial crisis together with its manifestations, using a Multiple Indicator Multiple Cause (MIMIC) model. Our analysis is conducted on a cross-section of 107 countries; we focus on national causes and consequences of the crisis, ignoring crosscountry...

Speech to UCLA Symposium at UC Berkeley, Berkeley, California, October 30, 2008