This paper reviews how central banks allocate seigniorage, based on systematic cross-country comparisons of their financial accounts. Central banks are classified as weak or strong, depending on their structural profitability. Weak central banks typically (although not exclusively) operate in...

This paper associates exchange rate crises and capital flight with the possibility of default on public debt resulting from fiscal rigidities. By including interest-bearing debt, both domestic and external, the model can generate the timing of an attack and can explain why domestic public bonds,...

This paper provides a simple, quantitative, net-worth-based approach to assessing the need for central bank capital. It derives a concept of "core capital" (a function of the central bank's operating expenditures and the carrying cost of its international reserves) as the minimum capital needed...