"Over the past ten years, economic volatility has come into its own after being treated for decades as a secondary phenomenon in the business cycle literature. This book organizes empirical and policy results for economists and development policy practitioners into four parts: basic features, including the impact of volatility on growth and poverty; commodity price volatility; the financial sector's dual role as an absorber and amplifier of shocks; and the management and prevention of macroeconomic crises. The latter section includes a cross-country study, ease studies on Argentina and Russia, and lessons from the debt default episodes of the 1980s and 1990s."--Jacket.