Since 1980, foreign investors have timed their purchases and sales of U.S. Treasurys to yield particularly low returns. Their annual dollar-weighted returns, measured by IRRs, are around 3% lower than a buy-and-hold strategy over the same horizon. In comparison, the IRRs achieved by domestic...

China is both a major trading partner of the United States and the largest official holder of U.S. assets in the world. The value of Chinese foreign exchange reserves peaked at just over $4 trillion in June 2014, but has since declined to $3.19 trillion as of August 2016. This very large decline...

Recent sanctions on the use of Russia's international reserve assets seem likely to reduce the appeal of US dollar reserves as a "shock absorber" for international payments. But international reserves are also a means to reassure foreign investors that problematic countries will not confiscate...

In March 2020, the Federal Reserve eased the terms on its standing swap lines in collaboration with other central banks, reactivated temporary swap agreements, and then introduced the new Foreign and International Monetary Authorities (FIMA) repo facility. We provide new evidence on how the...

This essay discusses a methodology that can be used to calculate a static spread between the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR) and the USD London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR). Specifically, this method which is based on numerical methods uses optimization techniques to iteratively search...

China's gross domestic product in U.S. dollars is higher than earlier estimates would indicate, if calculated on the basis of purchasing power parity with the United States.China's gross domestic product per capita was only US$300 to $370 in 1980 - 91 in an estimate based on the World Bank Atlas...