Using a sample of 20 emerging countries from 1880 to 1913, we study the determinants and output effects of sudden stops in capital inflows during an era of intensified globalization. We find that higher levels of original sin (hard currency debt to total debt) and large current account deficits...

The present set of arrangements for U.S. exchange market intervention policy was largely developed after 1961 during the Bretton Woods era. However, that set had important historical precedents. In this paper we examine precedents to current arrangements, focusing on three historical eras:...

It is generally very difficult to measure the effects of a currency depreciation on a country%u2019s balance sheet and financing costs given the endogenous properties of the exchange rate. History provides at least one natural experiment to test whether an exogenous exchange rate depreciation...

Interconnections between banking crises and fiscal crises have a long history. We document the long-run evolution from classic banking panics towards modern banking crises where financial guarantees are associated with crisis resolution. Recent crises feature a feedback loop between bank...

This paper analyzes the role of transparency and credibility in accounting for the widely divergent macroeconomic effects of three episodes of deliberate monetary contraction: the post-Civil War deflation, the post-WWI deflation, and the Volcker disinflation. Using a dynamic general equilibrium...

This study grounds the establishment of EMU and the euro in the context of the history of international monetary cooperation and of monetary unions, above all in the U.S., Germany and Italy. The purpose of national monetary unions was to reduce transactions costs of multiple currencies and...

This paper argues that the key deep underlying fundamental for the growing international imbalances leading to the collapse of the Bretton Woods system between 1971 and 1973 was rising U.S. inflation since 1965. It was driven in turn by expansionary fiscal and monetary policies—the elephant in...

We study linkages between financial development, international trade, and long-run growth using data since 1880 for seventeen now-developed "Atlantic" economies and a set of cross-country and dynamic panel data models. We find that finance and trade reinforced each other before 1930, but that...

Do steep recoveries follow deep recessions? Does it matter if a credit crunch or banking panic accompanies the recession? Moreover does it matter if the recession is associated with a housing bust? We look at the American historical experience in an attempt to answer these questions. The answers...

There are some striking similarities between the pre 1914 gold standard and EMU today. Both arrangements are based on fixed exchange rates, monetary and fiscal orthodoxy. Each regime gave easy access by financially underdeveloped peripheral countries to capital from the core countries. But the...