We use data on the extent to which residents of one country hold the bonds of issuers resident in another as a measure of financial integration or interrelatedness, asking how Asia compares with Europe and Latin America and with the base case in which the purchaser and issuer of the bonds reside...

For China this suggests starting with a modest band widening and a limited increase in flexibility, and not with a large step revaluation which could have a sharp negative impact on investment and growth. Our results thus provide support for the kind of measures taken at the end of July

This paper reports evidence on the characteristics of fixed and flexible exchange rate regimes. It contrasts experience under three interwar exchange rate regimes: the free float of the early 1920s, the fixed rates of 1927-31, and the managed float of the early 1930s. A number of important...

Productivity growth is slowing around the world. In 2014, according to the Conference Board's Total Economy Data Base, the growth of total factor productivity (TFP) hovered around zero for the third straight year, down from 1 per cent in 1996-2006 and ½ per cent in 2007-12. In this paper we...

We describe in this essay why the gold standard and the euro are extreme forms of fixed exchange rates, and how these policies had their most potent effects in the worst peaceful economic periods in modern times. While we are lucky to have avoided another catastrophe like the Great Depression in...

We examine the impact of the Great Depression on the share of votes for right-wing anti-system parties in elections in the 1920s and 1930s. We confirm the existence of a link between political extremism and economic hard times as captured by growth or contraction of the economy. What mattered...