Carmen M. Reinhart

eight centuries of financial folly

This time is different

Kenneth Rogoff

Examines financial crises of the past and discusses similarities between these events and the current crisis, presenting and comparing historical patterns in bank failures, inflation, debt, currency, housing, employment, and government spending.

Eight Centuries of Financial Folly

This Time Is Different

Kenneth S. Rogoff

Questa volta è diverso. Otto secoli di follia finanziaria

Morris Goldstein

Graciela Laura Kaminsky

This study reviews the literature on the origins of currency and banking crises. It presents empirical tests on the performance of alternative early-warning indicators for emerging-market economies. The book also identifies crisis-threshold values for early-warning indicators.

An Early Warning System for Emerging Markets

Assessing Financial Vulnerability

A comprehensive look at international financial crises that puts more recent economic meltdowns into perspective Throughout history, rich and poor countries alike have been lending, borrowing, crashing—and recovering—their way through an extraordinary range of financial crises. Each time, the experts have chimed, "this time is different"—claiming that the old rules of valuation no longer apply and that the new situation bears little similarity to past disasters. With this breakthrough study, leading economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff definitively prove them wrong. Covering sixty-six countries across five continents, This Time Is Different presents a comprehensive look at the varieties of financial crises, and guides us through eight astonishing centuries of government defaults, banking panics, and inflationary spikes—from medieval currency debasements to today's subprime catastrophe. Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, leading economists whose work has been influential in the policy debate concerning the current financial crisis, provocatively argue that financial combustions are universal rites of passage for emerging and established market nations. The authors draw important lessons from history to show us how much—or how little—we have learned. Using clear, sharp analysis and comprehensive data, Reinhart and Rogoff document that financial fallouts occur in clusters and strike with surprisingly consistent frequency, duration, and ferocity. They examine the patterns of currency crashes, high and hyperinflation, and government defaults on international and domestic debts—as well as the cycles in housing and equity prices, capital flows, unemployment, and government revenues around these crises. While countries do weather their financial storms, Reinhart and Rogoff prove that short memories make it all too easy for crises to recur. An important book that will affect policy discussions for a long time to come, This Time Is Different exposes centuries of financial missteps.

Miguel A. Savastano

"Dollarization, in a broad sense, is increasingly a defining characteristic of many emerging market economies. How important is this trend quantitatively and how important is it for the conduct of monetary policy and the choice of exchange rate regimes? Though these questions have become a hot topic in both the theory and policy literature, most efforts are remarkably uninformed by evidence, in no small part because meaningful data has been lacking, except for a very narrow range of assets. This paper attempts to move the discussion forward and shed light on the critical questions by proposing a measure of dollarization that is broad both conceptually and in terms of country coverage. We use this measure to identify trends in the evolution of dollarization in the developing world in the last two decades, and to ascertain the consequences that dollarization has had on the effectiveness of monetary and exchange rate policy. We find that, contrary to the general presumption in the literature, a high degree of dollarization does not seem to be an obstacle to monetary control or to disinflation. A level of dollarization does, however, appear to increase exchange rate pass-through, reinforcing the claim that fear of floating' is a greater problem for highly dollarized economies. We also review the developing countries' record in combating their addiction to dollars. Concretely, we try to explain why some countries have been able to avoid certain forms of the addiction, and examine the evidence on successful de-dollarization"--NBER website

Addicted to Dollars

Kennth S. Rogoff

Revisión histórica de diversos indicadores financieros de los últimos 800 años en distintos países del mundo, que demuestra la existencia de patrones y ciclos en las crisis financieras. Los autores analizan las semejanzas entre los diferentes periodos de debacle financiera y establecen analogías utilizables por inversionistas y responsables del establecimiento de políticas financieras para evitar cometer errores que conduzcan a la pérdida de capitales o al endeudamiento excesivo.

Carmen M. Reinhart

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