Bailouts or BailIns? Responding to Financial Crises in Emerging Economies

Roughly once a year, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, the US treasury secretary and in some cases the finance ministers of other G-7 countries will get a call from the finance minister of a large emerging market economy. The emerging market finance minister will indicate that the country is rapidly running out of foreign reserves, that it has lost access to international capital markets and, perhaps, that is has lost the confidence of its own citizens. Without a rescue loan, it will be forced to devalue its currency and default either on its government debt or on loans to the country's banks that the government has guaranteed.

This book looks at these situations and the options available to alleviate the problem. It argues for a policy that recognizes that every crisis is different and that different cases need to be handled within a framework that provides consistency and predictability to borrowing countries as well as those who invest in their debt.

Nouriel Roubini is an American economist. He teaches at New York University's Stern School of Business and is the chairman of Roubini Global Economics, an economic consultancy firm.

Brad Setser is an American economist and former blogger. A former staff economist at the United States Department of the Treasury, he worked at Roubini Global Economics Monitor, along with Nouriel Roubini. After leaving the RGE Monitor, Setser became a fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations, where (among other things) he was the author of the popular economics blog "Follow the Money" about global economic imbalances. In 2009, he took a position with the National Economic Council. In 2011, he moved to the United States Department of the Treasury, where he is the Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Economic Analysis.