List of tables -- List of figures -- List of boxes -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Preamble : some initial intuitions on financial fragility and the fickle nature of confidence -- pt. I. Financial crises : an operational primer -- 1. Varieties of crises and their dates -- Crises defined by quantitative thresholds : inflation, currency crashes, and debasement -- Crises defined by events : banking crises and external and domestic default -- Other key concepts -- 2. Debt intolerance : the genesis of serial default -- Debt thresholds -- Measuring vulnerability -- Clubs and regions -- Reflections on debt intolerance -- 3. A global database on financial crises with a long-term view -- Prices, exchange rates, currency debasement, and real GDP -- Government finances and national accounts -- Public debt and its composition -- Global variables -- Country coverage -- pt. II. Sovereign external debt crises -- 4. A digression on the theoretical underpinnings of debt crises -- Sovereign lending -- Illiquidity versus insolvency -- Partial default and rescheduling -- Odious debt -- Domestic public debt -- Conclusions -- 5. Cycles of sovereign default on external debt -- Recurring patterns -- Default and banking crises -- Default and inflation -- Global factors and cycles of global external default -- The duration of default episodes -- 6. External default through history -- The early history of serial default : emerging Europe, 1300--1799 -- Capital inflows and default : an "old world" story -- External sovereign default after 1800 : a global picture.

pt. III. The forgotten history of domestic debt and default -- 7. The stylized facts of domestic debt and default -- Domestic and external debt -- Maturity, rates of return, and currency composition -- Episodes of domestic default -- Some caveats regarding domestic debt -- 8. Domestic debt : the missing link explaining external default and high inflation -- Understanding the debt intolerance puzzle -- Domestic debt on the eve and in the aftermath of external default -- The literature on inflation and the "inflation tax" -- Defining the tax base : domestic debt or the monetary base? -- The "temptation to inflate" revisited -- 9. Domestic and external default : which is worse? Who is senior? -- Real GDP in the run-up to and the aftermath of debt defaults -- Inflation in the run-up to and the aftermath of debt defaults -- The incidence of default on debts owed to external and domestic creditors -- Summary and discussion of selected issues -- pt. IV. Banking crises, inflation, and currency crashes -- 10. Banking crises -- A preamble on the theory of banking crises -- Banking crises : an equal-opportunity menace -- Banking crises, capital mobility, and financial liberalization -- Capital flow bonanzas, credit cycles, and asset prices -- Overcapacity bubbles in the financial industry? -- The fiscal legacy of financial crises revisited -- Living with the wreckage : some observations -- 11. Default through debasement : an "old world favorite" -- 12. Inflation and modern currency crashes -- An early history of inflation crises -- Modern inflation crises : regional comparisons -- Currency crashes -- The aftermath of high inflation and currency collapses -- Undoing domestic dollarization.

pt. V. The U.S. subprime meltdown and the second great contraction -- 13. The U.S. subprime crisis : an international and historical comparison -- A global historical view of the subprime crisis and its aftermath -- The this-time-is-different syndrome and the run-up to the subprime crisis -- Risks posed by sustained U.S. borrowing from the rest of the world : the debate before the crisis -- The episodes of postwar bank-centered financial crisis -- A comparison of the subprime crisis with past crises in advanced economies -- Summary -- 14. The aftermath of financial crises -- Historical episodes revisited -- The downturn after a crisis : depth and duration -- The fiscal legacy of crises -- Sovereign risk -- Comparisons with experiences from the first great contraction in the 1930s -- Concluding remarks -- 15. The international dimensions of the subprime crisis : the results of contagion or common fundamentals? -- Concepts of contagion -- Selected earlier episodes -- Common fundamentals and the second great contraction -- Are more spillovers under way? -- 16. Composite measures of financial turmoil -- Developing a composite index of crises : the BCDI index -- Defining a global financial crisis -- The sequencing of crises : a prototype -- Summary -- pt. VI. What have we learned? -- 17. Reflections on early warnings, graduation, policy responses, and the foibles of human nature -- On early warnings of crises -- The role of international institutions -- Graduation -- Some observations on policy responses -- The latest version of the this-time-is-different syndrome -- Data appendixes -- A.1. Macroeconomic time series -- A.2. Public debt -- A.3. Dates of banking crises -- A.4. Historical summaries of banking crises -- Notes -- References -- Name index -- Subject index.