The essays in this volume analyze causes of financial crises in emerging markets and different policy responses.

We build a model of financial sector illiquidity in an open economy. Illiquidity defined as a situation in which a country's consolidated financial system has potential short-term obligations in foreign currency that exceed the amount of foreign currency it can have access to on short notice can be associated with self fulfilling bank and/or currency crises. We focus on the policy implications of the model, and study the role of capital inflows and the maturity of external debt, the way in which real exchange rate depreciation can transmit and magnify the effects of bank illiquidity, options for financial regulation, the role of debt and deficits, and the implications of adopting different exchange rate regimes.

We build a model of financial sector illiquidity in an open economy. Illiquidity is defined as a situation in which a country's consolidated financial system has potential short-term obligations that exceed the amount of foreign currency available on short notice. We show that illiquidity is key in the generation of self-fulfilling bank and/or currency crises. We discuss the policy implications of the model and study issues associated with capital inflows and the maturity of external debt, the role of real exchange depreciation, options for financial regulation, fiscal policy, and exchange rate regimes.

Economists and policymakers are still trying to understand the lessons recent financial crises in Asia and other emerging market countries hold for the future of the global financial system. In this timely and important volume, distinguished academics, officials in multilateral organizations, and public and private sector economists explore the causes of and effective policy responses to international currency crises. Topics covered include exchange rate regimes, contagion (transmission of currency crises across countries), the current account of the balance of payments, the role of private sector investors and of speculators, the reaction of the official sector (including the multilaterals), capital controls, bank supervision and weaknesses, and the roles of cronyism, corruption, and large players (including hedge funds). Ably balancing detailed case studies, cross-country comparisons, and theoretical concerns, this book will make a major contribution to ongoing efforts to understand and prevent international currency crises.

This book provides a comprehensive investigation of the messy and crisis-ridden relationship between the operations of capitalist finance, global capital flows, and state power in emerging markets. The politics, drivers of emergence, and diversity of these myriad forms of state power are explored in light of the positionality of emerging markets within the network of space and power relations that characterises contemporary global finance. The book develops a multi-disciplinary perspective and combines insights from Marxist political economy, post-Keynesian economics, economic geography, and postcolonial and feminist International Political Economy. Alami comprehensively reviews the theories, histories, and geographies of cross-border finance management, and develops a conceptual framework which allows unpacking the complex entanglement of constraint and opportunities, of growing integration and tight discipline, that cross-border finance represents for emerging markets. Extensive fieldwork research provides an in-depth comparative critical interrogation of the policies and regulations deployed in Brazil and South Africa. This volume will be especially useful to those researching and working in the areas of international political economy, contemporary geographies of money and finance, and critical development studies. It should also prove of interest to policy makers, practitioners, and activists concerned with the relation between finance and development in emerging markets and beyond.

This paper investigates the factors behind the 1994 and 1997 crises and whether these can explain the 1998 crisis. The study reveals that: (i) variables used in an Early Warning System model developed by IMF staff scored well in predicting the 1998 crisis out-of-sample; (ii) all three crisis episodes can be well explained by a parsimonious set of core fundamentals and liquidity related variables; and (iii) the presence of an IMF-supported program significantly reduced the depth of crises. The results suggest that as a rule of thumb countries should hold reserves to the tune of short-term debt to avoid contagion-related crises, provided their current deficits are modest and their real effective exchange rates are not significantly misaligned.

This paper presents and analyzes a simple banking model in which banks have access to international capital markets and domestic asset markets. The model generates two types of equilibria: a no-default equilibrium and a mixed equilibrium. In the no-default equilibrium, all banks are symmetric and always solvent, while in the mixed equilibrium, some banks can be internationally illiquid and default simultaneously. The latter equilibrium captures the basic features of banking crises after financial liberalization in emerging market economies. In this case, a large capital inflow leads to high asset-price volatility and magnifies a banking crisis. The effects of various public policies are also examined.