Large accumulations of foreign reserves have been ongoing recently in Asian countries. Policymakers seem to have decided to increase high levels of foreign reserves for self-insurance or precautionary purposes against exchange rate movements. Other countries have accumulated foreign reserves to...

Chapter 1; Risk Premiums -- Chapter 2: FX Forwards and the Carry Trade -- Chapter 3; Exchange Rates, Interest Rates, Inflation and the Risk Premium -- Chapter 4; The Mundell Fleming Model of the Exchange Rate -- Chapter 5: Valuation Models (PPP, DEER, FEER)? -- Chapter 6: What Drives Inflation and...

1. Introduction - Pressman and Smithin -- I. Budget -- 2. Keynes after Piketty: Some Unsettling Questions Regarding Government Budget Deficits - Steven Pressman -- 3. Some Unsettling Questions Regarding Government Budget Deficits: The National Debt is Irrelevant - David Barrows -- II. Trade --...

In this paper we trace the evolution of the lender of last resort doctrine—and its implementation—from the nineteenth century through the panic of 2008. We find that typically the most influential economists “fight the last war”: formulating policy guidelines that would have dealt...

This paper looks at the empirical determinates of foreign currency reserve holdings across a panel of around 130 countries between 1980 and 2008. The paper builds on the existing literature by adopting a panel error-correction model specification and by extending the sample to include the recent...

After the 2007–2009 economic deluge, the policy and theoretical case for a New Global Monetary and Financial Architecture gained momentum. This article analyzes some key features of the global crisis that severely limited the range of action of modern central banking. Earlier episodes of...