Credit constraints, financial liberalisation and twin crises - Working Paper No. 124 - January 2003

This paper proposes a continuous-time framework that explains some stylised facts in recent “twin crises” episodes. I show that access to the world capital market enables the domestic economy to achieve a more efficient allocation of resources. However, the banking sector becomes more fragile when this international borrowing is wealth-constrained. A temporary shock is amplified and becomes persistent due to the interaction between the value of bank assets and the borrowing constraint. Depending on the exchange rate regime arrangement and the policy of the central bank, this financial fragility can evolve into a banking crisis, a currency crisis, or the simultaneous occurrence of both. JEL Classification Numbers: F3, G21