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Working Paper
Testing for contagion using correlations: some words of caution
Tests for contagion in financial returns using correlation analysis are seriously affected by the size of the noncrisis and crisis periods. Typically the crisis period contains relatively few observations, which seriously affects the power of the test.
Working Paper
On discretion versus commitment and the role of the direct exchange rate channel in a forward-looking open economy model
Irrespective of whether discretion or commitment to a binding rule guides the conduct of monetary policy, the existence of a direct exchange rate channel in the Phillips Curve causes the behavior of the key economic variables in the open economy to be dramatically different from that in the closed economy. In the open economy, the policymaker can no longer perfectly stabilize real output and the rate of inflation in the face of IS and UIP shocks as well as shocks to foreign inflation. If the exchange rate channel in the Phillips Curve is operative, then in the open economy the policymaker ...
Working Paper
Crisis, contagion, and country funds: effects on East Asia and Latin America
Spillovers effects, from one country or region to other countries and regions, have attracted renewed attention in the aftermath of the Mexican crisis of December 1994. This paper uses data on closed-end country funds to study how a negative shock in Mexican equities is transmitted to Asia and Latin America, and to particular countries within each region. Country funds allow us to study the transmission to other fund net asset values (NAVs) and prices, which are traded in local stock markets in New York, respectively. The evidence indicates that shocks such as the Mexican crisis produce ...
Working Paper
Korean banks' responses to the strengthening of capital adequacy requirements
The purpose of this paper is to examine Korean banks' responses to the Basle risk-weighted capital adequacy requirements implemented in 1993. The analysis indicates that while some cosmetic adjustments might have been made by partial recognition of unrealized stock losses and expected loan losses, efforts to increase capital in ways that effectively reduced risk exposure seemed to dominate the response to strengthened capital requirements. The analysis also suggests the advisability of supplementing risk-based capital requirements with leverage restrictions. The analysis also raises the ...
Working Paper
Liberalization of Korea's foreign exchange markets
Working Paper
Thoughts on the origins of the Asia crisis: impulses and propagation mechanisms
The traditional fundamentals suggested by first and second-generation of crisis models did not provide much indication of an impending crisis in Asia. Growing current account deficits and somewhat overvalued real exchange rates suggested some need to curtail domestic demand and/or engineer nominal currency depreciation, but did not suggest a crisis of the magnitude that has occurred. ; Nevertheless, to a large extent, the Asian crisis can be explained in terms of impulses and propagation mechanisms related to fundamentals, specifically general weaknesses and distortions in the financial ...
Working Paper
Asia's financial crisis: lessons and policy responses
This paper argues that fundamental weaknesses in Asian financial systems that had been masked by rapid growth were at the root of East Asia's 1997 currency and financial crisis. These weaknesses were caused by the lack of incentives for effective risk management created by implicit or explicit government guarantees against failure. The weakness of the financial sector was accentuated by large capital inflows, which were partly encouraged by pegged exchange rates. ; Policy responses need to be designed to restore growth in an environment of macroeconomic stability in the short run, and to ...
Working Paper
Trade and growth in East Asian countries: cause and effect?
Estimates of growth equations have found a role for openness, particularly in explaining rapid growth among East Asian countries. But major concerns of simultaneous causality between growth and trade have been expressed. This study aims to deal with the endogeneity of trade by using as instrumental variables the exogenous determinants from the gravity model of bilateral trade, such as proximity to trading partners. Our preliminary finding is that the effect of openness on growth is even clearer when we correct for the endogeneity of openness than in standard OLS estimates. We conclude ...