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Journal Article
Emerging Bond Markets and COVID-19: Evidence from Mexico
The pandemic caused by the coronavirus is depressing economic activity and severely straining government budgets globally. Without international support, the ability of emerging economies to weather this crisis will depend crucially on access to and the cost of borrowing in domestic government bond markets. Analyzing bond flows and risk premiums for Mexican government bonds during the pandemic gives some insights into a major emerging economy’s experience. Mexican risk premiums have increased more than 1 percentage point above predicted levels, pointing to tighter funding conditions for the ...
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 ...
Journal Article
How do currency crises spread?
Working Paper
Mexico's balance-of-payments crisis: a chronicle of death foretold
This paper claims that the roots of Mexico's balance-of-payments crisis are found in the prevailing high degree of capital mobility and financial globalization. Under these circumstances, shifts in foreign capital flows and anticipation of a banking-system bailout may produce large imbalances between stocks of financial assets and foreign reserves, threatening the sustainability of currency pegs. Econometric analysis suggests that 1/2 of Mexico's reserve losses could be accounted for by these phenomena. Large financial imbalances are also fertile ground for self-fulfilling-prophesy crises ...
Journal Article
Understanding recent crises in emerging markets
The world economy is going through a difficult and dangerous period. The recent Brazilian currency meltdown is one more in a series of events that includes the Asian crises of 1997-98 and the Mexican crash in 1994, and there is uncertainty about whether other emerging economies will be infected with the Brazilian virus. ; Dealing with crises in emerging economies is, therefore, an urgent matter. However, what to do about these crises is a source of heated debate. According to the author of this article, much of the confusion arises from the fact that accumulated knowledge about crises in ...
Journal Article
Policy priorities and the Mexican exchange rate crisis
Mexico's December 1994 devaluation and subsequent financial crisis came as a surprise even to some analysts who focus on Latin American financial markets. This article outlines the events leading up to the devaluation and discusses the tension that mounted throughout 1994 between policies to address growing banking-sector problems in Mexico, the policies designed to preserve the nation's exchange rate regime, and the pressures induced by rising U.S. interest rates. The article concludes that-while each difficulty impeded the resolution of the other-the explosive nature of the ensuing crisis ...
Journal Article
Mexico's crisis: looking back to assess the future
Mexico's most recent economic crisis took many in the international business community by surprise. In early December 1994, the Blue Chip consensus forecast for 1995 Mexican real GDP growth was 3.8 percent. A few weeks later, on December 20, the devaluation of the Mexican peso rocked international financial markets. What first appeared to be a minor correction in Mexico's nominal exchange rate quickly developed into a broader financial crunch felt in and outside Mexico. The Mexican government now expects the country's real GDP to fall about 3 percent in 1995; some private economists suggest ...
Journal Article
Sudden Stops and COVID-19: Lessons from Mexico’s History
The COVID-19 pandemic produced a sharp contraction in capital flows in emerging markets during the spring of 2020. Such contractions are known as “sudden stops” and historically have been associated with significant downturns in a country’s economic activity. Evidence from Mexico’s financial crisis history suggests that sudden stops tend to exhibit a common pattern: the crisis lasts one to two years before a rapid but partial recovery, followed by years of protracted stagnation.
Journal Article
The banking sector rescue in Mexico
In Mexico the December 1994 peso devaluation provoked a profound economic downturn in that country and revealed a fragile banking sector. Fearful that the financial system would collapse under a rising level of past due loans, the Mexican government mounted a rescue of the banking sector by intervening in the daily operations of some problem banks while establishing a series of capitalization and restructuring programs available to all banks. ; This article examines Mexico's bank rescue efforts (1995-98) with a particular focus on the role of the deposit insurance fund, the Bank Fund for the ...
Journal Article
The Mexican economic crisis: alternative views
The authors of this article suggest that many of the explanations for the 1994 crisis are based on questionable assumptions and dubious analysis. They contend that, when trying to explain the crisis, most authors have concentrated on the wrong economic "fundamentals." They challenge the conventional view that the crisis was caused by a combination of flawed fiscal, monetary, and exchange rate policies. Their explanation for the crisis belongs in an alternative camp that emphasizes the vulnerability of the Mexican financial system to swings in expectations and investor confidence. ; In their ...