One of the reasons for governments to employ capital controls is to obtain some degree of monetary independence. In this paper we test whether capital controls can reduce the link between exchange rates fluctuations and cross border interest differentials. Recent capital control proxies are used...

Motivated by the action plan for a European capital markets union (CMU), this paper analyzes the potential for legal harmonization and convergence in institutional quality to affect capital market integration. Based on hand-collected data on the implementation of EU-directives, our analysis...

This paper investigates a consumption-real exchange rate anomaly from the open macroeconomics literature known as the Backus-Smith puzzle. We both analytically and quantitatively examine how an expansion of trade along extensive margins can contribute to the puzzle's resolution. Our argument is...

Policymakers often use guarantees on bank liabilities to prevent or contain bank runs during systemic banking crises, but their success has been debated. Using a sample of 42 episodes of banking crises, this paper finds that blanket guarantees do help to reduce liquidity pressures on banks, but...

Although the 2007–2008 US credit crisis precipitated it, the subsequent Irish credit crisis is an identifiably separate one, which might have occurred in the absence of the U.S. crash. The distinctive differences between them are notable. Many of the apparent causal factors of the U.S. crisis...

This paper proposes a new perspective on systematic deviations from purchasing power parity. Panel evidence for OECD countries shows that international financial integration increases the national price level under managed exchange rate regimes and lowers the price level under floating exchange...

Using a panel dataset covering 139 countries over the 1970–2009 period, we empirically investigate the role of foreign direct investment on growth through diffusion of technology and innovation. Using an otherwise standard growth regression and regressions on productivity growth, we introduce...

National borders continue to be strong barriers for mergers and acquisitions in Europe. Using regional data, we construct a gravity model and find that the restraining impact of national borders decreased by more than 17 percent between 1991 and 2007. However, no significant change has occurred...

The present paper examines the degree of comovement of gross capital inflows, which is a highly sensitive issue for policy makers. We estimate a dynamic hierarchical factor model that is able to decompose inflows in a sample of 47 economies into (i) a global factor common to all types of flows...

The banking literature focuses extensively on the phenomenon of bank entry and pays less attention to the factors driving the continuation of banking activities in foreign markets. In this paper, we analyze this important, but overlooked, issue by constructing a unique database of foreign banks...