This paper assesses whether the international monetary system is already tripolar and centred around the US dollar, the euro and the Chinese renminbi (RMB). It focuses on what we call China’s “dominance hypothesis”, i.e. whether the renminbi is already the dominant currency in Asia,...

This paper assesses whether the international monetary system is already tripolar and centred around the US dollar, the euro and the Chinese renminbi (RMB). It focuses on what we call China's “dominance hypothesis”, i.e. whether the renminbi is already the dominant currency in Asia, exerting...

This paper provides insights into the determinants of currency choice in cross-border bank lending, such as bilateral distance, financial and trade linkages to issuer countries of major currencies, and invoicing currency patterns. Cross-border bank lending in US dollars, and particularly in...

In the policy debate on the effectiveness of the Global Financial Safety Net, concerns have been raised that expectations of adverse effects of IMF programmes may deter countries from asking for an IMF programme when they need one, a form of "IMF stigma". We explore the existence of IMF...

No empirical evidence has yet emerged for the existence of a robust positive relationship between financial openness and economic growth. This paper argues that a key reason for the elusive evidence is the presence of a time-varying relationship between openness and growth over time: countries...

In the policy debate on the effectiveness of the Global Financial Safety Net, concerns have been raised that expectations of adverse effects of IMF programmes may deter countries from asking for an IMF programme when they need one, a form of ̒IMF stigma̓. We explore the existence of IMF...

In this paper we analyse the relative importance of fundamental and speculative demand on oil futures price levels and volatility. In a first step, we present a theoretical heterogeneous agent model of the oil futures market based on noise trading. We use the model to study the interaction...

This paper studies the long-run evolution of bank risk and its links to the macroeconomy. Using data for 17 advanced economies, we show that the riskiness of bank assets declined materially between 1870 and 2016. But even though bank assets have become safer, the losses on these assets are...

We analyze the role of economic and security considerations in bilateral trade agreements. We use the pre-World War I period to test whether trade agreements are governed by pecuniary factors, such as distance and other frictions measured by gravity covariates, or by geopolitical factors. While...