In this paper, we study the effects of US target rate changes and related communications by members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors on spreads for emerging market sovereign credit default swaps (CDS). Using GARCH models, we find that during the pre-financial crisis sub-sample (April...

Using data for a large number of advanced and emerging market economies during 1982-2009, this paper examines the distinct impact of financial integration and globalization on several dimensions of real activity. We find that: (a) financial integration has progressed significantly worldwide,...

To what extent do national borders and national currencies impose costs that segment markets across countries? To answer this question the authors use a dataset with product-level retail prices and wholesale costs for a large grocery chain with stores in the United States and Canada. They...

We argue that criticism concerning the Chinese dollar peg is misplaced as no predictable link exists between the exchange rate and the trade balance of an international creditor economy. The stable nominal yuan/dollar rate is argued to have stabilized Chinese, East Asian and global growth....

This paper constructs new indicators of liquidity for equity, bond and money markets in major advanced and emerging market countries, documents their evolution and co-movements, and assesses the extent to which such measures are determinants of selected spreads and proxy measures of countries'...

This paper examines the role of uncertainty shocks in a one-sector, representative-agent dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model. When prices are flexible, uncertainty shocks are not capable of producing business cycle comovements among key macro variables. With countercyclical markups...

This brief exposition suggests that the Federal Reserve System temporarily guarantee a lower bound on stock prices in order to escape the current combination of liquidity trap and credit crunch. It shortly discusses reasons for this measure, consequences, and some alternatives. It is meant as a...

This paper empirically examines the theoretically ambivalent relationship between socially responsible investing (SRI) and stock performance. It extends the existing literature by considering both the US and the entire European stock markets as well as by using consistent world-wide corporate...