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In this paper, we focus on the surprising phenomenon in which firms face difficulty\ud issuing in domestic currency even in the home market, especially in emerging markets.\ud Could this be due to “original sin” which has been familiar to sovereign bond issuance?\ud In its new incarnation, original sin refers to the difficulty firms in many emerging\ud markets have in borrowing domestically long-term, even in the local currency. We infer\ud the nature of original sin from 5,901 financing decisions by firms in seven Asian emerging\ud markets over a period of 20 years. Our sample period covers an episode when bond\ud issuers had a choice between a less developed but growing onshore market, which varied\ud across countries in the level of development, and a deep and liquid offshore market. We\ud find that even in countries with onshore markets, it is often easier for unseasoned firms\ud to issue offshore (in foreign currency) than to issue onshore, but changes in market\ud development reverses this effect. In addition, once such a firm becomes a seasoned\ud issuer, it is absolved from domestic original sin and is then able to act opportunistically\ud and go to the market favored by interest differentials.

The offshore dollar markets (usually known as the markets of eurodollar) make the biggest segment of the world financial market and considerably facilitate use of US dollar in international trade and investment transactions through various time zones and geographic locations. Formation of the offshore markets of US dollar traces changes in perception of the offshore currency markets and internationalization of currency. Further development of the offshore market gave the chance of creation of a free ratio of supply and demand on financial resources at world level.

This country note is produced is part of The Pacific Catastrophe Risk Assessment andFinancing Initiative (PCRAFI). The geographic spread of the Cook Islands poses logistical problems for any necessary post-disaster relief and response efforts. The events of 2005 demonstrated that the Cook Islands is extremely vulnerable to the threat of tropical cyclones (TCs): in the two months of February and March 2005, TCs Meena, Nancy, Olaf, Percy, and Rae swept the country. The Cook Islands is expected to incur, on average, about NZ$6 million (US$4.9 million) per year in losses due to tropical cyclones. In the next 50 years, the Cook Islands has a 50 percent chance of experiencing a per-event loss exceeding NZ$97 million (US$79.5 million. The Cook Islands has a proactive approach to disaster risk financing and insurance (DRFI), which is supported by the upper echelons of government. In January 2011, the prime minister in his role as chair of the National Disaster Risk Management Council requested that the Ministry of Finance and Economic Management look at ways to become self-reliant in initial disaster response and generate new income streams for investment in a fund specifically for disaster management response and recovery. The Cook Islands has available a maximum amount of NZ$5.6 million (US$4.6 million) in the form of contingency funds and catastrophe risk insurance to facilitate disaster response. A number of options for further improving the Cook Islands financial protection against disasters are presented for consideration: (a) the development of an integrated DRFI strategy; (b) investigation of using contingent credit to access additional liquidity post-disaster; (c) development of an operations manual for post-disaster budget mobilization and execution; and (d) the identification of assets to be included in an insurance program for critical public assets.

The Indonesia economic quarterly reports on and synthesizes the past three months' key developments in Indonesia's economy. It places them in a longer-term and global context, and assesses the implications of these developments and other changes in policy for the outlook for Indonesia's economic and social welfare. The near-term global economic outlook is fragile and emerging economies, including Indonesia, again face the risk of a potential crisis that is not of their making. The growth outlook for Indonesia's major trading partners (MTP), at 3.3 percent in 2012, remains relatively weak as increased Euro zone uncertainty adds to the ongoing drags on global growth from budget cutting and deleveraging in developed economies, and capacity constraints in some developing economies. Recent international financial market turbulence looks set to continue in the near-term and, while this baseline scenario remains the most likely outcome, capital flows to emerging economies and sentiment are likely to remain volatile. Further enhancing crisis preparedness is therefore a policy priority for economies such as Indonesia but, at the same time, it is important to push ahead with reforms and investments which can support medium-term growth in what is likely to be a weaker global economic environment. Indonesia's gross domestic product (GDP) growth remained a solid 6.3 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2012, down slightly from an average of 6.5 percent in 2011. Seasonally-adjusted growth overall came down off the highs of the final quarter of 2011 but consumption growth held up well. However, investment growth dipped and, reflecting the relative weakness of external demand, net exports again were a drag on growth. Inflation, although picking up somewhat, has remained relatively low and price expectations came down with the reduced likelihood of a subsidized fuel price increase in 2012, as oil prices declined. In the event of a major freezing of international financial markets which contributes to a drop in trading partner growth. In a scenario in which such a crisis was accompanied, or indeed precipitated, a severe, prolonged global downturn encompassing the major emerging economies, growth in Indonesia could drop to 3.8 percent, with the impact of the slowdown felt more sharply in domestic activity as commodity price falls reduce incomes and investment. In the event of a severe crisis, it is possible that domestic consumer and business sentiment drops sharply which, combined with any potential stresses in the financial sector, could result in further downside to the growth scenarios.

We show in this paper that offshore markets intermediate a large chunk of financial transactions in major reserve currencies such as the US dollar. We argue that, for emerging market economies that are interested in seeing some international use of their currencies, offshore markets can help to increase the recognition and acceptance of the currency while still allowing the authorities to retain a measure of control over the pace of capital account liberalisation. The development of offshore markets could pose risks to monetary and financial stability in the home economy which need to be prudently managed. The experience of the Federal Reserve and of the authorities of the other major reserve currency economies in dealing with the euromarkets shows that policy options are available for managing such risks.

Capital account liberalization, it is fair to say, remains one of the most controversial and least understood policies of our day. One reason is that different theoretical perspectives have very different implications for the desirability of liberalizing capital flows. Another is that empirical analysis has failed to yield conclusive results. The answer, another influential strand of thought contends, is that this efficient-markets paradigm is fundamentally misleading when applied to capital flows. Limits on capital movements are a distortion. It is an implication of the theory of the second best that removing one distortion need not be welfare enhancing when other distortions are present.