Official accumulation of foreign reserves may be perceived as interventions to influence the exchange rate, undermining the credibility of floating exchange rates and inflation targets. This paper develops a theoretical framework to study the interaction between reserve accumulation and monetary...

Trends in the size of U.S. government are examined. In the postwar period, general government primary spending rose by 1⁄4 percent of GDP a year through 1975, stabilizing thereafter. With higher social transfers offset by a lower burden of defense spending, expansion reflected a baby-boom...

We investigate the role of financial dollarization in the determination of real interest rates in emerging economies. In a simple analytical model, we show that a strategy of ""dedollarizing"" the economy, if it fails to address fundamental macroeconomic risks, leads to higher domestic real...