Financial crises are dramatic events. When they emerge, they tend to dominate the attention of the press and become the focus of policymakers. In one form or another, they have affected the lives of millions of people throughout the world. As references to 16th century Dutch tulips, 18th South Seas merchant ventures, or 1920s Florida real estate make clear, they have been around for a long time. At their worst, such as in the cases of the Great Depression or the current Great Recession, th...

The macroeconomic experience of emerging and developing economies has tended to be quite different from that of industrial countries. Compared to industrial countries, emerging and developing economies have tended to be much more unstable, with more severe boom/bust cycles, episodes of high inflation and a variety of financial crises. This textbook describes how the standard macroeconomic models that are used in industrial countries can be modified to help understand this experience and ho...

This paper addresses analytical aspects of exchange rate policy and emphasizes the relationship among exchange rate flexibility, financial discipline, and international competitiveness.

Setting macroeconomic policy is especially difficult in fragile states. Political legitimacy concerns are heightened, raising issues such as who the policymakers are, what incentives they face, and how the process of policymaking is likely to work under limited legitimacy and high uncertainty both about the macroeconomic environment as well as policy effectiveness. In addition, fragility expands the range of policy objectives in ways that may constrain the attainment of standard macroecono...

Edited by Parthasarathi Shome, this Handbook was written primarily for economists who are responsible for analyzing and evaluating economic policies of developing countries at an applied level, and who would benefit from a comprehensive discussion of the concepts, principles, and prevailing issues of taxation.

This book, edited by Joaquín Muns, contains papers presented at a seminar in Viña del Mar, Chile, under the sponsorship of the Central Bank of Chile, the Federico Santa María University, and the IMF.

Back in the early 1990s, economists and policy makers had high expectations about the prospects for domestic capital market development in emerging economies, particularly in Latin America. Unfortunately, they are now faced with disheartening results. Stock and bond markets remain illiquid and segmented. Debt is concentrated at the short end of the maturity spectrum and denominated in foreign currency, exposing countries to maturity and currency risk. Capital markets in Latin America look par...

The United States has a problem – a big problem. Due to costs associated with the massive bailout of financial institutions deemed "too big to fail," on-going armed conflicts, and a move towards socialism, another even bigger bubble is about to burst – the debt bubble. The Great Super Cycle: Profit from the Coming Inflation Tidal Wave and Dollar Devaluation is an intriguing look at the relationship between Washington and Wall Street; the history of political shifts in power and ho...

“Mr. Minsky long argued markets were crisis prone. His 'moment' has arrived.” -The Wall Street Journal In his seminal work, Minsky presents his groundbreaking financial theory of investment, one that is startlingly relevant today. He explains why the American economy has experienced periods of debilitating inflation, rising unemployment, and marked slowdowns-and why the economy is now undergoing a credit crisis that he foresaw. Stabilizing an Unstable Economy covers:

In this concise volume, leading economist John B. Taylor offers empirical research to explain what caused the current financial crisis, what prolonged it, and what dramatically worsened it more than a year after it began. The evidence he presents strongly suggests that specific government actions and interventions are largely to blame and that any future government interventions must be based on a clearly stated diagnosis of the problem and a rationale for the interventions.

The revised edition of this highly acclaimed work presents crucial lessons from Japan's recession that could aid the US and other economies as they struggle to recover from the current financial crisis.This book is about Japan's 15-year long recession and how it affected current theoretical thinking about its causes and cures. It has a detailed explanation on what happened to Japan, but the discoveries made are so far-reaching that a large portion of economics literature will have ...