We discuss three well known plans that were offered in the twentieth century to provide an artificial replacement for gold and key currencies as international reserves: Keynes' Bancor, the SDR and the Ecu( predecessor to the euro).The latter two of these reserve substitutes were...

Over the past two decades, the international community has struggled to deal constructively with the problem of mitigating climate change. This is considered by many to be the preeminent public policy challenge of our time, but actual policy responses have been relatively modest. This essay...

Europe's monetary union is part of a broader process of integration that started in the aftermath of World War II. In this "political guide for economists" we look at the creation of the euro within the bigger picture of European integration. How and why were European institutions established?...

Many developing countries have increased their foreign reserve stocks dramatically in recent years, often motivated by the desire for precautionary self-insurance. One of the negative consequences of large accumulations for these countries is the risk of valuation losses. In this paper we...

We consider the purpose and design of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its predecessor, GATT. We review recent developments in the relevant theoretical and empirical literature. And we describe the GATT/WTO architecture and briefly trace its historical antecedents. We suggest that the...

If a coalition of countries implements climate policies, nonparticipants tend to consume more, pollute more, and invest too little in renewable energy sources. In response, the coalition's equilibrium policy distorts trade and is not time-consistent. This paper derives conditions for when...

In this essay we review the empirical literature about sovereign debt and default. As we survey the work of economists, historians, and political scientists, we also emphasize parallel developments by theorists and recommend steps to improve the correspondence between theory and data.

Small Think Regionalism focused on the Vinerian question: "Would a nation gain from joining a trade bloc?" Big Think Regionalism considers regionalism's systemic impact on the world trading system, focusing mainly on two questions: "Does spreading regionalism harm world welfare?" and "Does...

This paper discusses two pertinent issues dealing with the global liquidity crisis -- global prudential regulation reform, and reassessment of using international reserves in the crisis. We point out the paradox of prudential regulations -- while the identity of economic actors that benefited...

We develop a theory of interstate conflict in which the degree of genealogical relatedness between populations has a positive effect on their conflict propensities because more closely related populations, on average, tend to interact more and develop more disputes over sets of common issues. We...