The paper discusses global current account imbalances in the context of an asymmetric world monetary system and asymmetric current account developments. It identifies the US and Germany as center countries with rising / high current account deficits (US) and surpluses (Germany). These are...

The paper discusses global imbalances under the aspect of an asymmetric world monetary system. It identifies the US and Germany as center countries with rising / high current account deficits (US) and surpluses (Germany). These are matched by current account surpluses of countries stabilizing...

The paper discusses global imbalances under the aspect of an asymmetric world monetary system. It identifies the US and euro area (Germany) as center countries with rising current account deficits (US) and surpluses (Germany) which are matched by respective current account surpluses of...

This paper analyses currency options for six Pacific states - Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu - that issue their own currencies. Empirical estimates indicate that these states already stabilize their currencies against the US dollar because of their large and...

This paper analyses currency options for six Pacific states - Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu – that issue their own currencies. Empirical estimates indicate that these states already stabilize their currencies against the US dollar because of their large and...

China's financial conundrum arises from two sources: (1) its large trade (saving) surplus results in a currency mismatch because it is an immature creditor that cannot lend in its own currency. Instead foreign currency claims (largely dollars) build up within domestic financial institutions. And...

While up to the late 1990s Japanese foreign exchange intervention was fully sterilized, Japanese monetary authorities left foreign exchange intervention unsterilized when Japan entered the liquidity trap in 1999. According to previous research on foreign exchange intervention, unsterilized...

The target zone model by Krugman (1991) assumes that foreign exchange intervention targets exchange rate levels. We argue that the fit of this model depends on the stage of development of capital markets. Foreign exchange intervention of countries with highly developed capital markets is in line...