This fine book should be read not just by specialists in the economic history of Latin America. The more general reader will see useful applications of many of the theories of modern international finance, including empirical work showing that gold flows were consistent with the monetary...

With many emerging market currencies tied to the U.S. dollar either implicitly or explicitly, movements in the exchange values of the currencies of major countries–in particular the prolonged appreciation of the U.S. dollar vis-a-vis the yen and the deutsche mark in advance of Asia’s...

Exchange rate based inflation stabilization programs in developing countries often lead to an initial consumption boom followed by an eventual recession. To explain such phenomenon, theoretical models have focused on the role of intertemporal consumption substitution in response to temporary...

This paper focuses on some of the macroeconomic risks that lie ahead for Latin America. The discussion is informed by my work on crises and capital flows and their macroeconomic consequences. The trends and initial conditions that allowed the region to weather the global economic storm of...

In this note, we attempt to place the question of how we got to the global financial crisis that began as the US Subprime debacle in the summer of 2007 in the context of an international and historical comparative setting. It is of some poignancy that the “we” here refers to the wealthiest...

Capital inflows can be a mixed blessing, especially in economies with thin domestic financial markets and when driven by investors with a short-term focus. Many levers of policy can be applied to resist the effects of the inflows. One that has been widely relied upon has been currency...

In this note we summarize our recent paper, where we delved into the details of this apple-to-oranges problem with the aim of defining a minimum common ground. We begin our analysis by explicitly documenting the kinds of measures that are construed as capital controls. Along the way, we describe...

Periods of high indebtedness have historically been associated with a rising incidence of default or restructuring of public and private debts. Sometimes the debt restructuring is subtle and takes the form of, “financial repression.” In the heavily regulated financial markets of the Bretton...

In our recent paper, (Reinhart and Reinhart, 2010) we examine the behavior of real GDP (levels and growth rates), unemployment, inflation, bank credit, and real estate prices in a twenty one-year window surrounding selected adverse global and country-specific shocks or events. In this note, we...

This paper highlights the findings of some of the recent research on capital flows, credit booms, and their attendant consequences for asset prices, business cycles, financial crises and the interaction among these. The aim is to condense key results from the relevant literature and promote...