2 The Series " Documenti di Lavoro " of the Istituto di Studi e Analisi Economica – Institute for Studies and Economic Analyses (ISAE) hosts the preliminary results of the research projects carried out within ISAE. The diffusion of the papers is subject to the favourable opinion of an anonymous referee, whom we would like to thank. The opinions expressed are merely the Authors' own and in no wa...

We study how discount window policy affects the frequency of banking crises, the level of investment, and the scope for indeterminacy of equilibrium. Previous work has shown that providing costless liquidity through a discount window has mixed effects in terms of these criteria: it prevents episodes of high liquidity demand from causing crises, but can also lead to indeterminacy of stationary e...

the frequent occurrence of currency crises in recent years brought the early warning literature back in the researchers spotlight. in recent years, concept of an early warning system (ews) developed that should be able to identify various costly events, such as currency crises, early enough for policy makers to reduce the costs. this study attempted by using iran's economy quarterly data d...

Evidence shows that asset price bubbles typically precede financial crises and financial crises are accompanied by the collapse of bubbles. In addition, stock market booms and busts are typically associated with credit market booms and busts. The recent US housing and stock market bubbles and the subsequent Great Recession that began in late 2007 provide an example. The stock market booms in th...

It is difficult to disagree with the general argument that successful health reform requires a significant degree of policy capacity or that all players in the policy game need to move beyond self-interested advocacy. However, an overly broad definition of policy capacity is a problem. More important perhaps, health reform inevitably requires not just policy capacity but political leadership an...

It is my pleasure, and indeed an honor, to be invited to join this panel. At the same time, however, I feel somewhat regretful to have to talk on financial crises in Japan and Southeast Asia, where until a few years ago we had taken pride in our record of financial development and stability as compared with the rest of the world. The common factors behind the recent financial instability in thi...

This paper reviews the analytical and empirical literature on contagion. It begins by discussing how to define contagion, the theoretical evidence on how it might occur, and the empirical literature evaluating its causes during the financial crises of the 1990s. There has been less contagion during recent crises, however, as countries, investors, and the international financial institutions hav...

a r t i c l e i n f o This study aims to identify which factors explain why some countries enjoy long durations of stability, while others experience crises in shorter intervals. We analyze the duration of stability periods between currency, debt, and banking crises by employing an innovative econometric strategy, the Finite Mixture Model (FMM). Real and financial variables show high predictive...