A potential cost of modern capital markets is short-termism, with agents in the financial intermediation chain weighing near-term outcomes too heavily at the expense of longer-term opportunities and thus forgoing valuable investment projects and potential output. This paper sets out an analytical framework and empirical estimates of the potential costs of short-termism arising from distortions to the cost of capital and investment intentions.

This paper offers an analytical framework with which to assess some recent proposals for strengthening the international financial architecture. We develop a model of sovereign liquidity crises that reflects two sources of financial stress – weak fundamentals and self-fulfilling expectations. We examine the nature of the underlying co-ordination game and investigate the properties of the unique equilibrium. In so doing, we are able to characterise the welfare costs of belief-driven crises, which we find to be potentially significant. We also evaluate some recent policy proposals including prudent debt and liquidity management, capital controls, greater information disclosure, and the efficacy of monetary policy tightening in the midst of crisis.