This emphasis is apparent in the three G22 reports on strengthening the international financial architecture (G22 1998a, b, c), which were the official community's definitive word on the subject circa 1998. 3 Drage and Mann (1999) and Frankel (1999) are representative of many examples that could be cited.

No abstract

Speculative attacks tend to be temporally correlated; that is, currency crises appear to pass "contagiously" from one country to another. The paper provides a survey of the theoretical literature and analyzes the contagious nature of currency crises empirically. Using thirty years of panel data from twenty industrialized countries, we find evidence of contagion. Contagion appears to spread more easily to countries which are closely tied by international trade linkages than to countries in similar macroeconomic circumstances.

The number and value of bonds issued by emerging market borrowers grew enormously in the course of the 1990s (table 4.1). They were a major source of capital for developing countries and had significant implications for the operation of international capital markets. The value of the bonds issued by developing countries rose from negligible levels in the 1980s (less than $3.5 billion in 1989) to $24 billion in 1992, more than $50 billion per year in 1993-95, an unprecedented $102 billion in 1996, and even higher levels in 1997.l Equity issues, while the subject of much attention, never reached comparable heights. The market's ability to discriminate among borrowers and to price risk accordingly has been controversial, to say the least. Some observers Barry Eichengreen is the George C. Pardee and Helen N.