Ten Crises

"What can one learn from past experience to avoid future financial crises? Montiel (Williams College) seeks to answer that question by examining economic crises involving countries in Asia, Europe, and Latin America from 1980 to 2010. With the small number of observations precluding statistical analysis, he effectively uses comparative case studies to support his findings. For each crisis, Montiel applies a common outline that includes background information, development of vulnerabilities, identification of a precipitating event, description of the crisis, policy responses, evaluation of outcomes, and lessons learned. From the comparisons, he finds that breakdowns in expectations that financial obligations will be honored arise from widespread doubts about the sufficiency of central banks' foreign exchange reserves; the ability of governments to pay off their sovereign debts; or the convertibility of commercial bank demand deposits to cash at par. He notes from those experiences that weakness in one sector frequently leads to breakdowns in others. His final chapter summarizes those crises and presents fiscal, monetary, and financial sector policy recommendations to avoid their future occurrence. Summing Up: Recommended.
Students, upper-division undergraduate and up; faculty, researchers, professionals, general readers." -- E. L. Whalen, formerly, Clarke College published in CHOICE May 2014

"What can one learn from past experience to avoid future financial crises? Montiel (Williams College) seeks to answer that question by examining economic crises involving countries in Asia, Europe, and Latin America from 1980 to 2010. With the small number of observations precluding statistical analysis, he effectively uses comparative case studies to support his findings...Summing Up: Recommended." - E. L. Whalen, formerly, Clarke College for CHOICE