Curbing the Boom-Bust Cycle: Stabilizing Capital Flows to Emerging Markets

by John Williamson

Overview

International investors poured vast sums of money into East Asian and Latin American countries during the mid-1990s, when the emerging market boom was at its peak. Then Thailand stumbled and panic seized the markets, and boom gave way to bust. Investors suffered large financial losses, while Asian countries suddenly experienced large capital outflows and the macroeconomic pressures these wrought plunged countries that had been growing rapidly ("miraculously") into crisis. Much the same had happened in Latin America when the debt crisis broke in 1982.

This book investigates what can be done to make the international capital market a constructive force in promoting development in emerging markets. John Williamson concludes that the problem of cyclicality that has undermined the value of international borrowing cannot be tackled just, or even mainly, from the supply side, but will require actions on the part of both creditors and debtors.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780881323306
Publisher:	Peterson Institute for International Economics
Publication date:	07/30/2005
Series:	Policy Analyses in International Economics Series , #75
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

John Williamson, senior fellow (retired), was associated with the Institute from 1981 to 2012. He was project director for the UN High-Level Panel on Financing for Development (the Zedillo Report) in 2001; on leave as chief economist for South Asia at the World Bank during 1996–99; economics professor at Pontifica Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (1978–81), University of Warwick (1970–77), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1967, 1980), University of York (1963–68), and Princeton University (1962–63); adviser to the International Monetary Fund (1972–74); and economic consultant to the UK Treasury (1968–70).

Editorial Reviews

John Williamson's book provides a first-rate analysis of the causes and effects of volatile capital flows to emerging markets.

Finance and Development