External Liabilities and Crises

We examine the determinants of external crises, focusing on the role of foreign liabilities and their composition. Using a variety of statistical tools and comprehensive data spanning 1970-2011, we find that the ratio of net foreign liabilities (NFL) to GDP is a significant crisis predictor, and the...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Catão, Luis
Other Authors: Milesi-Ferretti, Gian
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Washington, D.C. International Monetary Fund 2013
Series:IMF Working Papers
Subjects:
Online Access:
Collection: International Monetary Fund - Collection details see MPG.ReNa
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100 1 |a Catão, Luis 
245 0 0 |a External Liabilities and Crises  |c Luis Catão, Gian Milesi-Ferretti 
260 |a Washington, D.C.  |b International Monetary Fund  |c 2013 
300 |a 37 pages 
651 4 |a Portugal 
653 |a International economics 
653 |a Current Account Adjustment 
653 |a International Investment 
653 |a Current account 
653 |a Foreign direct investment 
653 |a Finance 
653 |a Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy 
653 |a Balance of payments 
653 |a Economic & financial crises & disasters 
653 |a International Lending and Debt Problems 
653 |a Long-term Capital Movements 
653 |a External debt 
653 |a Financial Crises 
653 |a Current account balance 
653 |a Sovereign Debt 
653 |a International Financial Markets 
653 |a Short-term Capital Movements 
653 |a Financial crises 
653 |a Exports and Imports 
653 |a Debt 
653 |a Debt Management 
653 |a Financial Risk Management 
653 |a Debts, External 
653 |a Investments, Foreign 
700 1 |a Milesi-Ferretti, Gian 
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520 |a We examine the determinants of external crises, focusing on the role of foreign liabilities and their composition. Using a variety of statistical tools and comprehensive data spanning 1970-2011, we find that the ratio of net foreign liabilities (NFL) to GDP is a significant crisis predictor, and the more so when it exceeds 50 percent in absolute terms and 20 percent of the country-specific historical mean. This is primarily due to net external debt--the effect of net equity liabilities is weaker and net FDI liabilities seem if anything an offset factor. We also find that: i) breaking down net external debt into its gross asset and liability counterparts does not add significant explanatory power to crisis prediction; ii) the current account is a powerful predictor, either measured unconditionally or as deviations from conventionally estimated “norms” iii) foreign exchange reserves reduce the likelihood of crisis more than other foreign asset holdings; iv) a parsimonious probit containing those and a handful of other variables has good predictive performance in- and out-of-sample. The latter result stems largely from our focus on external crises stricto sensu