Both the literature and new empirical evidence show that exchange rate regimes differ primarily by the noisiness of the exchange rate, not by measurable macroeconomic fundamentals. This motivates a theoretical analysis of exchange rate regimes with noise traders. The presence of noise traders...

This paper develops a procedure to rank-order countries and commodities using disaggregated US imports data. It finds strong evidence that both countries and commodities can be ranked, consistent with the ‘product cycle’ hypothesis. Countries habitually begin to export goods to the United...

Exchange rate regimes differ primarily by the activity of the exchange rate, not observable macroeconomic ‘fundamentals’. Fixed exchange rates are typically stable and floating exchange rates are volatile, but macro phenomena are regime-independent. Fundamentals only seem to be relevant for...

This Paper estimates the effect of sovereign debt renegotiation on international trade. Sovereign default may be associated with a subsequent decline in international trade either because creditors want to deter default by debtors, or because trade finance dries up after default. To estimate the...

Gravity-based cross-sectional evidence indicates that currency unions stimulate trade; cross-sectional evidence indicates that trade stimulates output. This paper estimates the effect that currency union has, via trade, on output per capita. We use economic and geographic data for over 200...

I examine the hypothesis that membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its predecessor the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) has increased the stability and predictability of trade flows. I use a large dataset covering annual bilateral trade flows between over 175...

We use a panel of annual data for over one hundred developing countries from 1971–92 to characterize currency crashes. We define a currency crash as a large change of the nominal exchange rate that is also a substantial increase in the rate of change of nominal depreciation. We examine the...

We study empirically the macroeconomic effects of an explicit de jure quantitative goal for monetary policy. Quantitative goals take three forms: exchange rates, money growth rates, and inflation targets. We analyse the effects on inflation of both having a quantitative target, and of hitting a...

As communication costs fall, foreign embassies and consulates have lost much of their role in decision-making and information-gathering. Accordingly, foreign services are increasingly marketing themselves as agents of export promotion. I investigate whether exports are in fact systematically...

This Paper is an empirical study of fiscal policy in countries with extreme monetary regimes. We study members of multilateral currency unions, dollarized countries that officially use the money of another country, and countries using currency boards. We find that belonging to an international...