Hikes in U.S. interest rates in 1999-2000 have started to spill over to other economies' interest rates, which in many countries have risen to reflect the higher U.S. rates. Are countries with flexible exchange rates better able to isolate their domestic interest rates from this type of negative...

As a consequence of recent regulatory initiatives against ‘banking secrecy', international financial activities in offshore financial centres (OFC), which comprise mostly small island tax-havens, may have diminished appeal to financial institutions and investors in advanced economies. In this...

Original sin is widely considered inevitable for emerging market economies on the ground that their currencies are not accepted as international currencies. Few, however, explore the effects of currency controls on original sin. To examine this possibility, I consider an open economy with a...

We study China's external wealth, its net foreign assets position with valuation adjustment, and its excess returns. The net foreign assets of China, which are mainly dominated by foreign reserve assets and foreign direct investment liabilities, have grown rapidly since its entry to the World...

We evaluate the impact of the global financial crisis (GFC) and recent structural changes in the patterns of hoarding international reserves (IR). We confirm that the determinants of IR hoarding evolve with developments in the global economy. During the pre-GFC period of 1999-2006, gross saving...

Global capital flows into emerging markets, including those in Asia, continue to be volatile. These capital flows generate both benefits and costs. The latter are associated with episodes of currency and banking crises like the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the 2008 global financial and...

Conventional logic suggests that lowering the policy interest rate will stimulate consumption and investment while discouraging people from saving, but low interest rates may also prompt people to increase their saving to compensate for the low rate of return. Using data on 135 countries from...

We evaluate the impact of the global financial crisis (GFC) and recent structural changes in the patterns of hoarding international reserves (IR). We confirm that the determinants of IR hoarding evolve with developments in the global economy. During the pre-GFC period of 1999-2006, gross saving...

This paper estimates the cash flow and real effects of currency mismatches generated by foreign-priced operations of French manufacturers. The value of transactions invoiced in foreign currencies is twice as sensitive to exchange rates as the value of transactions invoiced in the domestic...

This paper will propose a plan to reform international finance – the World Financial Authority (WFA) Plan. Under such a plan, the IMF and other existing international financial institutions would be reformed and coordinated around a newly created WFA. The WFA would have two core functions....