Our goal in this project is to gain a better empirical understanding of the international financial implications of currency movements. To this end, we construct a database of international currency exposures for a large panel of countries over 1990-2004. We show that trade-weighted exchange...

A classic argument for a fixed exchange rate is its promotion of trade. Empirical support for this, however, is mixed. While one branch of research consistently shows a small negative effect of exchange rate volatility on trade, another, more recent, branch presents evidence of a large positive...

The interwar period was marked by the end of the classical gold standard regime and new levels of macroeconomic disorder in the world economy. The interwar disorder often is linked to policies inconsistent with the constraint of the open-economy trilemma the inability of policymakers...

Recently, the political economy of macroeconomic policy choice has increasingly been guided by the simple prescriptions of the classic trilemma. For example, policymakers often speak of the hollowing out of exchange rate regimes in a world of unstoppable capital mobility; and policy autonomy and...

It is often argued that many economies are affected by conditions in foreign countries. This paper explores the connection between interest rates in major industrial countries and annual real output growth in other countries. The results show that high foreign interest rates have a...

This paper explores the connection between interest rates in major industrial countries and annual real output growth in other countries. The results show that high large-country interest rates have a contractionary effect on annual real GDP growth in the domestic economy, but that this effect...

In this paper we connect the events of the last twelve months, "The Panic of 2008" as it has been called, to the demand for international reserves. In previous work, we have shown that international reserve demand can be rationalized by a central bank's desire to backstop the broad money supply...

The rapid growth of international reserves---a development concentrated in the emerging markets---remains a puzzle. In this paper we suggest that a model based on financial stability and financial openness goes far toward explaining reserve holdings in the modern era of globalized capital...

The exchange-rate regime is often seen as constrained by the monetary policy trilemma, which imposes a stark tradeoff among exchange stability, monetary independence, and capital market openness. Yet the trilemma has not gone without challenge. Some argue that under the modern float there could...