@techreport{NBERw18606, title = "External Imbalances and
Financial Crises", author = "Alan M. Taylor", institution =
"National Bureau of Economic Research", type = "Working Paper",
series = "Working Paper Series", number = "18606", year =
"2012", month = "December", doi = {10.3386/w18606}, URL =
"http://www.nber.org/papers/w18606", abstract = {In broad
perspective, there have been essentially two competing views of
the global financial crisis, albeit there are some
complementarities among them. One view looks across the border:
it mainly blames external imbalances, the large-scale mix of
unprecedented pattern current account deficits and surpluses
which entailed massive and growing net and gross international
financial flows in the last decade. The alternative view looks
within the border: it finds more fault in the domestic arena of
the afflicted countries, attributing the problems to financial
systems where risks originated in excessive credit booms in
local banks. This paper uses the lens of macroeconomic