We study the allocation of commodities through a two-stage hierarchy of competitive markets. Groups or countries trade at global prices while individuals within a group trade at local prices. We identify the free trade and the autarky equilibrium as polar cases. We show that no other two-stage...

The onset of the US credit crisis in 2008, and its rapid globalization induced the FED to extend unprecedented swap-lines of 30 billion dollars to four emerging markets, and the proliferation of other cross-countries selective swap arrangements. This paper explores the logic for these...

This paper evaluates the degree to which current account patterns are explained by the variables suggested by the literature, and reflects on possible future patterns. We start with panel regressions explaining the current account of 69 countries during 1981-2006. We identify an asymmetric...