Money Crises And Transition

Guillermo Calvo, one of the most influential macroeconomists of the last thirty years, has made pathbreaking contributions in such areas as time-inconsistency, lack of credibility, stabilization, transition economies, debt maturity, capital flows, and financial crises. His work on macroeconomic issues relevant for developing countries has set the tone for much of the research in this area and greatly influenced practitioners' thinking in Latin America, Eastern Europe, Asia, and elsewhere. InMoney, Crises, and Transition, leading specialists in Calvo's main areas of expertise explore the themes behind this impressive body of work. The essays take on the issues that have fascinated Calvo most as an academic, a senior advisor at the International Monetary Fund, and as the chief economist at the Inter-American Development Bank: monetary and exchange rate policy (both in theory and practice); financial crises; debt, taxation, and reform; and transition and growth. A final section provides a behind-the-scenes look at Calvo's career and intellectual journey and includes an interview with Calvo himself. ContributorsLeonardo Auernheimer, Fabrizio Coricelli, Padma Desai, Allan Drazen, Sebastian Edwards, Roque B. Fern�ndez, Stanley Fischer, Ricardo Hausmann, Bostjan Jazbec, Peter Isard, Graciela L. Kaminsky, Michael Kumhof, Amartya Lahiri, Igal Magendzo, Enrique G. Mendoza, Frederic S. Mishkin, Igor Masten, Pritha Mitra, Alejandro Neut, Maurice Obstfeld, Edmund S. Phelps, Assaf Razin, Carmen M. Reinhart, Francisco Rodriguez, Efraim Sadka, Ratna Sahay, Rajesh Singh, Evan Tanner, Carlos A. V�gh, Andr�s Velasco, Rodrigo Wagner

The essays taken on the issues that have fascinated Calvo most as an academic, a senior advisor at the International Monetary Fund and as the chief economist at the Inter-American Development Bank: monetary and exchange rate policy, financial crises, debt, taxation and reform, and transition and growth.

Financial crises have become relatively frequent events since the beginning of the 1980s. They have taken three main forms: currency crises, banking crises, or both - so called twin crises. As the number of developed economies, developing countries, and economies in transition experienced severe financial crashes researchers are trying to propose a framework for systemic analyses. That is why attempts to advance the understanding of features leading to the outbreak of financial crisis as well as the reasons of vulnerability have become more and more important. In recent years a number of efforts have been undertaken to identify variables that act as early warning signals for crises. The purpose of this paper is to provide some perspective on the issue of early warning signals of vulnerability to currency crises. In particular, it is aimed at presenting and highlighting the main findings of theoretical literature in this area. An effective warning system should consider a broad variety of indicators, as currency crises seem to be usually associated with multiple economic and sometimes political problems. Indicators that have proven to be particularly useful in anticipating crises and received empirical support include the development of international reserves, real exchange rate, domestic credit, credit to the public sector, domestic inflation, and structure and financing of public debt. Other indicators that have found support are trade balance, export performance, money growth, M2/international reserves ratio, foreign interest rates, real GDP growth, and fiscal deficit. Many of the proposed leading indicators have been able to predict particular crises, however, only few have showed ability to do so consistently. Generally, economic models can be said to be more successful in predicting crises that erupt because of weak fundamentals, which make country vulnerable to adverse shocks. They are less likely in anticipating crises due to selffulfilling expectations or pure contagion effects. So far economists are only able to identify situations in which an economy could face the risk of a financial crisis. This is most because of the well-known fact that if we knew the crisis would have already occurred. Warning indicators seem to be unlikely to predict crises in precise way but their analyses can provide extended information about impending problems what enables to take preventive measures.

The global economic downturn that followed the collapse of major US financial institutions is no doubt the most significant crisis of our times. Its effects on corporate and governmental balance sheets have been devastating, as have been its impacts on the employment and well being of tens of millions of citizens. It continues to pose major challenges to national policymakers and institutions around the world. Managing public uncertainty and anxiety is vital in coping with financial crises. This requires not just prompt action but, most of all, persuasive communication by government leaders. At the same time, the very occurrence of such crises raises acute questions about the effectiveness and robustness of current government policies and institutions. With the stakes being so high, defining and interpreting what is going on, how and why it happened, and what ought to be done now become key questions in the political and policy struggles that crises invariably unleash. In this volume, we study how heads of government, finance ministers and national bank governors in eight countries as well as the EU engage in such 'framing contests', and how their attempts to interpret the cascading events of the economic downturn were publicly received. Using systematic content analysis of speeches and media coverage, this volume offers a unique comparative assessment of public leadership in times of crisis.

Sacred Economics traces the history of money from ancient gift economies to modern capitalism, revealing how the money system has contributed to alienation, competition, and scarcity, destroyed community, and necessitated endless growth. Today, these trends have reached their extreme—but in the wake of their collapse, we may find great opportunity to transition to a more connected, ecological, and sustainable way of being. This book is about how the money system will have to change—and is already changing—to embody this transition. A broadly integrated synthesis of theory, policy, and practice, Sacred Economics explores avant-garde concepts of the New Economics, including negative-interest currencies, local currencies, resource-based economics, gift economies, and the restoration of the commons. Author Charles Eisenstein also considers the personal dimensions of this transition, speaking to those concerned with "right livelihood" and how to live according to their ideals in a world seemingly ruled by money. Tapping into a rich lineage of conventional and unconventional economic thought, Sacred Economics presents a vision that is original yet commonsense, radical yet gentle, and increasingly relevant as the crises of our civilization deepen. Sacred Economics official website: http://sacred-economics.com/

We update the widely used banking crises database by Laeven and Valencia (2008, 2010) with new information on recent and ongoing crises, including updated information on policy responses and outcomes (i.e. fiscal costs, output losses, and increases in public debt). We also update our dating of sovereign debt and currency crises. The database includes all systemic banking, currency, and sovereign debt crises during the period 1970-2011. The data show some striking differences in policy responses between advanced and emerging economies as well as many similarities between past and ongoing crises.

the adaptation of the institutional settings of monetary policy to deal with an emerging market economy had to be carried out in the midst of an unprecedented stabilization effort and, therefore, was particularly urgent and complicated. In many of the transition countries, the transformation effort implied not just changes in procedures but the establishment of a central bank from scratch, a process that involved an important effort, precisely at a time when the whole system was in serious turmoil. While the process of reforms is not yet completed in all the transition countries, an immense amount of progress has been achieved, and many of the transition countries face today monetary and central banking conditions that are close to those of Western economies. In this volume, we collect a number of important contributions that discuss the most burning aspects of the current debates on central banking and monetary policy and draw implications for the postsocialist transition economies. The various papers included in the volume deal with a broad set of related issues, which are highly relevant not just for transition economies but for other emerging markets and for advanced economies as well. The subjects covered in the book are divided into seven major categories (Sections II to VIII), some of which overlap.

A cutting-edge look at how accelerating financial change, from the end of cash to the rise of cryptocurrencies, will transform economies for better and worse. We think weÕve seen financial innovation. We bank from laptops and buy coffee with the wave of a phone. But these are minor miracles compared with the dizzying experiments now underway around the globe, as businesses and governments alike embrace the possibilities of new financial technologies. As Eswar Prasad explains, the world of finance is at the threshold of major disruption that will affect corporations, bankers, states, and indeed all of us. The transformation of money will fundamentally rewrite how ordinary people live. Above all, Prasad foresees the end of physical cash. The driving force wonÕt be phones or credit cards but rather central banks, spurred by the emergence of cryptocurrencies to develop their own, more stable digital currencies. Meanwhile, cryptocurrencies themselves will evolve unpredictably as global corporations like Facebook and Amazon join the game. The changes will be accompanied by snowballing innovations that are reshaping finance and have already begun to revolutionize how we invest, trade, insure, and manage risk. Prasad shows how these and other changes will redefine the very concept of money, unbundling its traditional functions as a unit of account, medium of exchange, and store of value. The promise lies in greater efficiency and flexibility, increased sensitivity to the needs of diverse consumers, and improved market access for the unbanked. The risk is instability, lack of accountability, and erosion of privacy. A lucid, visionary work, The Future of Money shows how to maximize the best and guard against the worst of what is to come.