In 1998, the Russian Federation experienced one of the most severe emerging market crises of the 1997–2001 period. It occurred less than six months after the attainment of single-digit inflation, which was supposed to launch the economy onto a sustainable growth path. This note sets out why...

World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) programs favor unification of official and black market exchange rates on the argument that multiple exchange rates misallocate resources. This article shows that such policy advice sometimes overlooks an important consideration: when multiple...

Written by a former World Bank economist, How Does My Country Grow? distils growth policy lessons from the author's first-hand experience in Poland, Kenya, India, and Russia, and his contributions to the economic policy debates that followed the emerging market crises of 1997 to 2001, extending...

We examine how financial cycles affect the broader economy through their impact on real economic sectors in a panel of countries over 1960–2005. Periods of accelerated growth of the financial sector are more likely to be followed by abrupt financial contractions than are periods of slower...

We examine how financial expansion and contraction cycles affect the broader economy through their impact on real economic sectors in a panel of countries over 1960-2005. Periods of accelerated growth of the financial sector are more likely to be followed by abrupt financial contractions than...

This paper argues that the frequent failure of the debt swaps follows from fundamental forces driven by the market's assessment of the scarcity of fiscal revenue relative to the demand for fiscal outlays. As a country approaches the range of partial default, swaps may not provide the expected...