Sadly, our previous compilation of VoxEU columns, ‘The First Global Financial Crisis of the 21st Century,’ was not the last word on the subject. Since the publication of that volume in June 2008, the global crisis has both deepened and widened. The industrial world has seen the largest bank...

We have now witnessed more than half a decade of relatively heavy capital inflows to a large group of highly heterogeneous developing countries and economies in transition in Asia, Eastern Europe, the Former Soviet Union, Latin America, and parts of Africa and the Middle East--we have also...

This contribution is an analysis and a comment of the Final Remarks of the Governor of the Bank of Italy and his directions of economic policy for the Italian economy. An economy that has a high unemployment and also supports a public debt that, despite the recent efforts of fiscal...

Most Western economists and policy makers agree that the Yuan is significantly undervalued and push the Chinese government for a large nominal revaluation of the Yuan. This paper, while surveying recent research on Chinese exchange rate policy, gives some new insights into this issue. Notably,...

Michael D. Bordo has helped to define the modern field of monetary history, drawing from it important policy lessons for current practitioners. For his seventieth year, we survey his contributions to our understanding of the Great Depression, money and the economy in historical perspective,...

This paper looks at the history of money and its modern form from a scientific and mathematical point of view. The approach here is to emphasize simplicity. A straightforward model and algebraic formula for a large economy analogous to the ideal gas law of thermodynamics is proposed. It may be...

Globalization and strengthening of integration processes have, among other things, also influenced some solutions relating to monetary sovereignty of particular countries. A great number of transition countries as well as some other underdeveloped countries are facing both inefficiency in their...

This paper focuses on some of the macroeconomic risks that lie ahead for Latin America. The discussion is informed by my work on crises and capital flows and their macroeconomic consequences. The trends and initial conditions that allowed the region to weather the global economic storm of...

In recent years currency crises affected not only Southeast Asian countries, but transition economies as well. The Russian crisis of August 1998 was perhaps the most spectacular example, but it was preceded by currency crises in Bulgaria and Romania in 1996-97, in Ukraine and Belarus in 1997-98...

We explore the informational value of credit default swaps and the extent to which they may be linked to financial crises. After developing a theoretical framework to model the relationship between credit default swap market and equity and currency markets, we apply an empirical study which uses...