This paper analyzes the causes and consequences of offshore financial centers (OFCs). Since OFCs are likely to be tax havens and money launderers, they encourage bad behavior in source countries. Nevertheless, OFCs may also have unintended positive consequences for their neighbors, since they...

"Debt overhang" models have motivated the possibility of Pareto-improving "market-based debt-reduction schemes" under an assumption of creditor seizure in bad states. These models usually reach the conclusion that while pure debt forgiveness is in the interest of debtor nations, debt repurchase...

Disclosure is widely regarded as a necessary condition for market discipline in a modern financial sector. However, the determinants of disclosure decisions are still unknown, particularly among banks. This paper investigates the determinants of disclosure by Japanese Shinkin banks in 1996 and...

This paper examines the implications of a North-South trade accord where investments in the Southern partner nation exhibit country risk. Our analysis demonstrates that North-South trade accords can serve as credibility-enhancing mechanisms that induce additional foreign capital inflows into...

How reliable are China's GDP and other data? We address this question by using trading partner exports to China as an independent measure of its economic activity from 2000–2014. We find that the information content of Chinese GDP improves markedly after 2008.We also consider a number of...

This paper examines the motivation for, and the success of, regional efforts in Asia to promote local currency bond markets. The analysis demonstrates that Asian local currency bond markets made substantial gains as a region going into the current global financial crisis. However, we argue that...

The recent collapse of the Argentine currency board raises new questions about the desirability of formal fixed exchange rate regimes in modern developing economies. This paper examines the impact of dollarized liabilities with potential default for a currency board with costly abandonment. We...