Presents the first theoretical analysis of the Asian financial crisis and draws out the general lessons of an event whose potential long term effects have been likened to those of the Crash of 1929. Part I presents a factual and analytic overview of what happened: the role of 'vulnerability'; the interconnection between currency crises and financial crises; and why crisis turned into collapse. Part II considers more detailed issues, including how the inflation of non-traded goods prices created vulnerability, welfare-reducing capital inflow owing to under-regulated financial markets, and the onset of speculative attacks. Part III assesses all aspects of contagion, in particular the role of geographic proximity. The final section addresses policy issues. Joseph Stiglitz argues that there is much that can be done to reduce the frequency of crises and to mitigate the severity of crises when they happen. The book finishes with a round-table discussion of policy issues.

The first theoretical analysis of the Asian Financial Crisis--perhaps the single most important economic event of the 1990s--starts by presenting a factual and analytic overview of what happened. It goes on to consider why crisis turned into collapse, speculative attacks, and contagion and finishes with a round table discussion of policy issues. The distinguished contributors are from organizations including IMF, the World Bank and the Bank for International Settlements. This is vital reading for policy professionals as well as researchers and graduate students in a wide range of disciplines.

The global financial crisis triggered severe shocks for developing countries, whose embrace of greater commercial and financial openness has increased their exposure to external shocks, both real and financial. This new edition of Development Macroeconomics has been fully revised to address the more open and less stable environment in which developing countries operate today. Describing the latest advances in this rapidly changing field, the book features expanded coverage of public debt and the management of capital inflows as well as new material on fiscal discipline, monetary policy regimes, currency, banking and sovereign debt crises, currency unions, and the choice of an exchange-rate regime. A new chapter on dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models with financial frictions has been added to reflect how the financial crisis has reshaped our thinking on the role of such frictions in generating and propagating real and financial shocks. The book also discusses the role of macroprudential regulation, both independently and through its interactions with monetary policy, in preserving financial and macroeconomic stability. Now in its fourth edition, Development Macroeconomics remains the definitive textbook on the macroeconomics of developing countries. * The most authoritative book on the subject--now fully revised and expanded* Features new material on fiscal discipline, monetary policy regimes, currency, banking and sovereign debt crises, and much more* Comes with online supplements on informal financial markets, stabilization programs, the solution of DSGE models with financial frictions, and exchange rate crises

In the past three decades, developing countries have made significant economic and social progress, from improved infant mortality rates to higher life expectancy. Yet, 1.3 billion people continue to live in extreme poverty in the developing world, leading policymakers to place a renewed emphasis on policies that could promote economic efficiency and the productivity of the poor. How should these policies be sequenced and implemented to spur growth? Would a large, front-loaded increase in public infrastructure investment yield the desired growth-promoting effect?

Taking a rigorous look at this kind of investment and its outcomes, this book explores the different channels through which public capital in infrastructure may affect growth and human welfare, and develops a series of formal models for understanding how these channels operate. Bringing together a vast amount of research in one unifying framework, Pierre-Richard Agenor finds that in considering investment in infrastructure, a variety of externalities need to be factored into analytical models and introduced in policy debates. Lack of access to infrastructure not only constrains the expansion of markets and private investment, it may also hinder the achievement of health and education targets. Ease of access, conversely, promotes innovation and empowers women by allowing them to reallocate their time to productive uses.

Laying a solid foundation of economic facts and ideas, "Public Capital, Growth, and Welfare" provides a comprehensive look at the critical role of public capital in development."

An integrated analysis of how financial frictions can be accounted for in macroeconomic models built to study monetary policy and macroprudential regulation. Since the global financial crisis, there has been a renewed effort to emphasize financial frictions in designing closed- and open-economy macroeconomic models for monetary and macroprudential policy analysis. Drawing on the extensive literature of the past decade as well as his own contributions, in this book Pierre-Richard Agenor provides a unified set of theoretical and quantitative macroeconomic models with financial frictions to explore issues that have emerged in the wake of the crisis. These include the need to understand better how the financial system amplifies and propagates shocks originating elsewhere in the economy; how it can itself be a source of aggregate fluctuations; the extent to which central banks should account for financial stability considerations in the conduct of monetary policy; whether national central banks and regulators should coordinate their policies to promote macroeconomic and financial stability; and how much countercyclical macroprudential policies should be coordinated at the international level to mitigate financial spillovers across countries. Agenor focuses on upper middle-income countries, which differ from advanced economies in terms of both their structural features (which include a financial sector dominated by banks, weak supervisory capacity, and a high degree of vulnerability to external shocks) and their long-standing policy challenges (such as managing volatile capital flows). Some of the analytical insights and broad policy lessons that can be drawn from the book will be of relevance to advanced economies as well.

This book provides a systematic and coherent framework for understanding the interactions between the micro and macro dimensions of economic adjustment policies; that is, it explores short-run macroeconomic management and structural adjustment policies aimed at promoting economic growth. It emphasizes the importance of structural microeconomic characteristics in the transmission of policy shocks and the response of the economy to adjustment policies. It has particular relevance to the economics of developing countries.

The book is directed to economists interested in an overview of the economics of reform; economists in international organizations, such as the UN, the IMF, and the World Bank, dealing with development; and economists in developing countries. It is also a text for advanced undergraduate students pursuing a degree in economic policy and management and students in political science and public policy.