The founders of the Bretton Woods System 60 years ago were primarily concerned with orderly exchange rate adjustment in a world economy that was characterized by widespread restrictions on international capital mobility. In contrast, the rapid pace of financial globalization during recent years...

Capital flows are closely monitored, but surprisingly little is known about the stocks of external assets and liabilities held by countries, especially in the developing world. This paper constructs estimates of foreign assets and liabilities and their equity and debt subcomponents for 66...

We present a novel and comprehensive dataset of bilateral gross and net external positions in various financial instruments for the main advanced and emerging economies and regions, designed to improve our understanding of cross-border financial linkages. The data show no strong correspondence...

We examine whether the cross-country incidence and severity of the 2008-2009 global recession is systematically related to pre-crisis macroeconomic and financial factors. We find that the pre-crisis level of development, increases in the ratio of private credit to GDP, current account deficits,...

This paper highlights the increased dispersion in net external positions in recent years, particularly among industrial countries. It provides a simple accounting framework that disentangles the factors driving the accumulation of external assets and liabilities (such as trade imbalances,...