This paper explores coordination problems in the transition to European Monetary Union (EMU). If incentives to undertake costly convergence and the benefits of EMU to any individual countrydepend on other countries' strategies, innefficiencies and multiple equilibria can arise. A multi-speed...

This chapter studies optimal monetary stabilization policy in interdependent open economies, by proposing a unified analytical framework systematizing the existing literature. In the model, the combination of complete exchange-rate pass-through ('producer currency pricing') and frictionless...

We decompose the Backus-Smith [1993] statistic -- a low or negative correlation between relative consumption and the real exchange rate at odds with a high degree of international risk sharing -- in its dynamic components at di¤erent frequencies. Using multivariate spectral analysis techniques...

In order to understand the dynamic effects of government spending on foreign trade the present paper proceeds in two steps. First, using U.S. time series data for the post-Bretton-Woods period, the dynamic effects of government spending are investigated within a structural Vector Autoregression...

In this paper, we study the co-movement of the government budget balance and the trade balance at business cycle frequencies. In a sample of 10 OECD countries we find that the correlation of the two time series is negative, but less so in more open economies. Moreover, for the US the...

This paper investigates the international transmission of productivity shocks in a sample of five G7 countries. For each country, using long-run restrictions, we identify shocks that increase permanently domestic labor productivity in manufacturing (our measure of tradables) relative to an...

We argue that a transaction tax is likely to amplify, not dampen, volatility in the foreign exchange markets. Our argument stems from the decentralized trading practice and the presumable discrepancy between 'informed' and 'uninformed' traders' valuations. Since informed 'traders' valuations are...

A central puzzle in international finance is that real exchange rates are volatile and, in stark contradiction to e.cient risk-sharing, negatively correlated with relative consumptions across countries. This paper shows that a model with incomplete markets and a low price elasticity of tradables...

This paper develops a quantitative, dynamic, open-economy model which endogenously generates high exchange rate volatility, whereas a low degree of pass-through stems from both nominal rigidities (in the form of local currency pricing) and price discrimination. We model real exchange rate...

According to the ’macroeconomic trilemma’ the ability of small economies to pursue an independent monetary policy is jointly determined by country specific foreign exchange (FX) rate flexibility and capital mobility. In particular, free floating economies should be able to isolate domestic...