The modern notion of an international currency involves use in areas of international finance and trade that extend well beyond central banks' coffers. In addition to their important roles as foreign exchange reserves, international currencies are most frequently used to denominate corporate and...

Does the center country of the International Monetary System enjoy an "exorbitant privilege" that significantly weakens its external constraint as has been asserted in some European quarters? Using a newly constructed dataset, we perform a detailed analysis of the historical evolution of US...

This paper provides answers to two questions. The first question is which international monetary regime is best for economic performance? One based on fixed exchange rates: including the gold standard and its variants? Adjustable peg regimes such as the Bretton Woods system and the European...

This paper reassesses the history of the international monetary system between the wars. It confirms the generality of several widely held interpretations of recent experience with floating exchange rates. There is a positive association between nominal exchange rate variability and real...