Growing Up to Financial Stability

This lecture briefly revisits the evidence on the incidence and severity of different varieties of crises within the context of globalization then (pre 1914) and now (1980 to the present), in my earlier work with Barry Eichengreen and in my recent work with Chris Meissner. I then discuss the determinants of emerging market crises from the perspective of the recent balance sheet approach to financial crises which build on the earlier literatures of banking crises, debt crises, and first and second generation currency crises. This approach puts at centre stage the importance of financial development. I then peel the onion back further and consider the “deep” institutional determinants of financial development and their relation to financial stability. I conclude with some lessons from history