Recent economic developments highlight Latin America`s vulnerability to economic and financial turmoil that is triggered by events in distant corners of the globe. The Asian financial crisis that began in 1997 and the more recent Russian crisis have left the region profoundly shaken, and living...

This paper discusses the ways in which macroeconomic developments can put stress on banks, and in extreme cases lead to banking crises. These macroeconomic causes of bank vulnerability and crisis have important implications for regulatory regimes, and for macroeconomic policy itself. Much of the...

This paper discusses the ways in which macroeconomic developments can put stress on banks, and in extreme cases lead to banking crises. These macroeconomic causes of bank vulnerability and crisis have important implications for regulatory regimes, and for macroeconomic policy itself. Much of the...

Recent economic developments highlight Latin America's vulnerability to economic and financial turmoil that is triggered by events in distant corners of the globe. The Asian financial crisis that began in 1997 and the Russion crisis have left the region profoundly shaken and fearful of a...

Although central bank independence is a core tenet of monetary policy-making, it remains politically contested: In many emerging markets, populist governments are in frequent public conflict with the central bank. At other times, the same governments profess to respect the monetary authority’s...

Recent financial crises and contagion call into question the wisdom of capital account liberalization. There is consensus that something is terribly wrong in the way international financial markets work for developing countries and that fixing is urgent. But what is wrong? Most views in...

This paper considers ongoing and proposed reforms of the international financial system in light of Latin America`s recent experience. Most proposals are based on one of three diagnoses: excessive capital flows, insufficient capital flows, and excessively volatile capital flows. While theories...