Historical data for over hundred years and 14 countries is used to estimate the long-run effect of productivity on the real exchange rate. We find large variations in the productivity effect across four distinct monetary regimes in the sample period. Although the traditional Balassa-Samuelson...

The classical gold standard era from 1880 to 1914, when most countries of the world defined their currencies in terms of a fixed weight (which is equivalent to a fixed price) of gold and hence adhered to a fixed exchange rate standard, has been regarded by many observers as a most admirable...

The paper examines how the Balassa-Samuelson hypothesis is affected by a modern variation of the standard model that allows product differentiation (within the traded and nontraded goods sectors) with the number of firms determined exogenously or endogenously. The hypothesis is found to be...

This paper revisits Canada's pioneering experience with floating exchange rate over the period 19501962. It examines whether the floating rate was the best option for Canada in the 1950s by developing and estimating a New Keynesian small open economy model of the Canadian economy. The model is...

Canada played an important role in the postwar establishment of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), yet it was also the first major member to challenge the orthodoxy of the BrettonWoods par value system by abandoning it in 1950 in favour of a floating, market-determined exchange rate....

Recent cross-country investigations of the role of institutional fundamentals such as the protection of property rights in promoting financial development have extended a literature that has for decades maintained that financial factors can affect real outcomes. In this paper we pursue this new...

Paper 1: This paper suggests that some time in the not-too-distant future the governments of the industrialized democracies – concretely, the United States, the European Union, and Japan – should consider establishing a common currency for their collective use. A common currency would...

We consider the debut of a new monetary instrument, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). Drawing on examples from monetary history, we argue that a successful monetary transformation must combine microeconomic efficiency with macroeconomic credibility. A paradoxical feature of these...

This lecture revisits the evidence on the incidence and severity of different varieties of financial crises within the context of globalization then (pre-1914) and now (1980 to the present). I then discuss the determinants of emerging market crises from the perspective of the recent balance...