President Pianalto discusses the characteristics of international reserve currencies and the benefits that a country - or a region such as the Eurozone - can enjoy if its currency fulfills that role. She concludes with comments on why global currency competition provides an incentive for central...

An investigation of whether the G-3 nations (Germany, Japan, and the U.S.) successfully maintained target zones following the G-7's February 1987 Louvre meeting. Using daily, official intervention data and simultaneous-equation techniques, the authors determine that the G-3 reacted in a manner...

Foreign-exchange operations did not end after the United States stopped its activist approach to intervention. Japan persisted in such operations, but avoided overt confl ict with its monetary policy. With the onset of the Great Recession, Switzerland has transacted in foreign exchange both for...

The authors develop a two-country real business cycle model and examine its consistency with the behavior of relative prices, and the model's implications for economic aggregates at the sectoral level.

An examination of the role of foreign banks in the loan sales market, finding that the motives for loan sales and purchases differ between U.S. and foreign-owned banks and between foreign banks of different regions, which is consistent with foreign banks' using the market for diversification.