The increasing dominance of finance starting in the late 1970s/early 1980s in the US and the UK, and somewhat later in other countries, was associated with two fundamental and structural processes generating the contradictions of this phase of development and finally the financial and economic...

The severity of the financial and economic crisis which started in 2007 cannot be understood without examining the medium- to long-run developments in the world economy since the early 1980s. The following long-run causes for the crisis can be identified: inefficient regulation of financial...

In this paper we review the empirical and theoretical literature on the effects of changes in the relationship between the financial sector and the non-financial sectors of the economy associated with 'financialisation' on distribution, growth, instability and crises. We take a macroeconomic...

We show that international consumption risk sharing is significantly improved by capital flows, especially portfolio investment. Concomitantly, we show that poor institutions hamper risk sharing, but to an extent that decreases with openness. In particular, risk sharing is prevalent even among...

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is in the process of re-inventing itself with bilateral and multilateral surveillance emerging as a key function. The paper analyses how IMF surveillance announcements may be influenced by political power that member countries exert at the IMF. First, we...

The U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) is expected to start raising policy interest rates in the near term and thus commence a tightening cycle for the first time in nearly a decade. The taper tantrum episode of May-June 2013 is a reminder that even a long anticipated change in Fed policies can trigger...

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is in the process of re-inventing itself with bilateral and multilateral surveillance emerging as a key function. The paper analyses how IMF surveillance announcements may be influenced by political power that member countries exert at the IMF. First, we...

The paper analyzes the effects of changes to regulatory policy and to monetary policy on cross-border bank lending since the global financial crisis. Cross-border bank lending has decreased, and the home bias in the credit portfolio of banks has risen sharply, especially among banks in the euro...

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...