The workhorse open-economy macro model suggests that capital inflows are contractionary because they appreciate the currency and reduce net exports. Emerging market policy makers however believe that inflows lead to credit booms and rising output, and the evidence appears to go their way. To...

This paper examines whether-and how-emerging market economies (EMEs) respond to capital flows to mitigate their untoward consequences. Based on a sample of about 50 EMEs over 2005Q1-2013Q4, we find that EME policy makers respond proactively to capital inflows by using a combination of policy...

This paper examines whether cross-border capital flows can be regulated by imposing capital account restrictions (CARs) in both source and recipient countries, as was originally advocated by John Maynard Keynes and Harry Dexter White. To this end, we use data on bilateral cross-border bank flows...

Although few would doubt that very high inflation is bad for growth, there is much less agreement about moderate inflation’s effects. Using panel regressions and a nonlinear specification, this paper finds a statistically and economically significant negative relationship between inflation and...

The growing integration of world capital markets has made it fashionable to argue that only extreme exchange rate regimes are sustainable. Short of adopting a common currency, currency board arrangements represent the most extreme form of exchange rate peg. This paper compares the macroeconomic...

Following very high inflation rates at the beginning of the reform process, most transition countries have succeeded in lowering their inflation to more moderate rates. Inflation rates in the Baltics, Russia, and other countries of the former Soviet Union are now typically in the range of...

This paper uses a disequilibrium framework to investigate a possible credit crunch in the East Asian crisis countries (Indonesia, Korea, and Thailand) during 1997-98. It defines a credit crunch as a situation in which interest rates do not equilibrate supply and demand for credit and the...

Milton Friedman argued that flexible exchange rates would facilitate external adjustment. Recent studies find surprisingly little robust evidence that they do. We argue that this is because they use composite (or aggregate) exchange rate regime classifications, which often mask very...