This paper uses new data and new econometric techniques to investigate the impact of international financial integration on economic growth and also to assess whether this relationship depends on the level of economic development, financial development, legal system development, government corruption, and macroeconomic policies. Using a wide array of measures of international financial integration on 57 countries and an assortment of statistical methodologies, we are unable to reject the null hypothesis that international financial integration does not accelerate economic growth even when controlling for particular economic, financial, institutional, and policy characteristics.

We present a readily available monthly measure of the intensity of capital controls across 29 emerging market countries that is based on the degree of restrictions on foreign ownership of equities. The initial opening of a market as given by our measure corresponds well with the liberalization dates of Bekaert and Harvey (2000a). In addition, our measure provides information on the extent of the initial opening as well as the evolution of the liberalization over time. We discuss two versions of the measure. One version provides the better indication of the extent of controls at a point in time, and is thus better suited for crosssectional analysis. The other version-smoothed of the relative price effects of asymmetric shocksprovides a better indication of changes in controls, and is thus more appropriate for time series work. After describing the measure, we compare it to other existing measures of capital controls and briefly describe some empirical applications.

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The object of this paper is to develop an operational early warning system (EWS) that can detect financial crises. To achieve this goal the paper analyzes and extends the early warning system developed by Kaminsky, Lizondo, and Reinhart (1998) and Kaminsky and Reinhart (1999) that is based on the "signal" approach. This system monitors several indicators that tend to exhibit an unusual behavior in the periods preceding a crisis. When an indicator exceeds (or falls below) a threshold, then it is said to issue a "signal" that a currency crisis may occur within a given period. The model does a fairly good job of anticipating some of the crises in 1997/1998, but several weaknesses to the approach are identified. The paper also evaluates how this system can be applied to an individual country. On balance, the results in this paper are mixed, but the results suggest that an early warning system should be thought of as a useful diagnostic tool.

This paper uses new data and new econometric techniques to investigate the impact of international financial integration on economic growth and also to assess whether this relationship depends on the level of economic development, financial development, legal system development, government corruption, and macroeconomic policies. Using a wide array of measures of international financial integration on 57 countries and an assortment of statistical methodologies, we are unable to reject the null hypothesis that international financial integration does not accelerate economic growth even when controlling for particular economic, financial, institutional, and policy characteristics.