This paper is a case study of the exchange rate adjustments during the first week following the swapping US election results. We compute three measures of exchange rate depreciation: the maximum depreciation during the 1st trading day after November 6 UTC 0:00 to capture the reaction on the...

"We examine how financial expansion and contraction cycles affect the broader economy through their impact on 8 real economic sectors in a panel of 28 countries over 1960-2005, paying particular attention to large, or sharp, contractions and magnifying and mitigating factors. Overall, the...

This paper investigates changes in cultural consumption patterns for a low concentration industry: wine and beer. Using data on 38 countries from 1963-2000, there is clear convergence in the consumption of wine relative to beer between 1963 and 2000. Convergence occurs even more quickly within...

This overview introduces and summarizes the findings of a practical volume on managing volatility and crises. The interest in these topics stems from the growing recognition that non-linearities tend to magnify the impact of economic volatility leading to large output and economic growth costs,...

This paper clarifies one of the puzzling results of the economic growth literature: the impact of military expenditure is frequently found to be non-significant or negative, yet most countries spend a large fraction of their GDP on defense and the military. We start by empirical evaluation of...

The "monetary trilemma" - the hypothesis that full monetary policy autonomy, exchange rate stability, and financial openness cannot simultaneously be achieved - has long been studied. Recently, holding international reserves (IR) has become an important policy instrument, insuring against...

Why do people save? A strand of the literature has emphasized the role of 'precautionary' motives; i.e., private agents save in order to mitigate unexpected future income shocks. An implication is that in countries faced with more macroeconomic volatility and risk, private saving should be...

Using a novel, high frequency dataset on capital control actions in 16 emerging market economies (EMEs) from 2001 to 2012, we provide new insights into the domestic and multilateral effects of capital controls. Increases in capital account openness reduce monetary policy autonomy and increase...

We evaluate the impact of the global financial crisis (GFC) and recent structural changes in the patterns of hoarding international reserves (IR). We confirm that the determinants of IR hoarding evolve with developments in the global economy. During the pre-GFC period of 1999-2006, gross saving...

Since the onset of the global financial crisis, China and the U.S. have reduced their current-account imbalances as a share of GDP to less than half their pre-crisis levels. For China, the reduction in its current-account surplus post-crisis suggests a structural change. Panel regressions for a...