This paper traces the evolution of the Federal Reserve and its engagement with the global economy over the last three decades of the 20th century: 1970 to 2000. The paper examines the Federal Reserve’s role in international economic and financial policy and analysis covering four areas: the...

This paper estimates the impact of China’s exchange rate changes on exports of competitor countries in third markets, known as the “spillover effect.” Recent theory is used to develop an identification strategy in which competition between China and its developing country competitors in...

This paper sets forth a new methodology for obtaining a consistent set of exchange rate realignments needed to accomplish international adjustment in current account imbalances to reach fundamental equilibrium exchange rates (FEERs). The approach is named the symmetric matrix inversion method...

Two aspects of global imbalances--undervalued exchange rates and sovereign wealth funds (SWFs--require a multilateral response. For reasons of inadequate leverage and eroding legitimacy, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has not been effective in dealing with undervalued exchange rates. We...

Recently, great attention has been focused on the impact of exchange rate regimes, just as previous empirical research examined central bank autonomy and announced targets for domestic monetary policy. To date, however, these three elements of monetary frameworks have been assessed in isolation...

The paper summarizes the current theory of how a floating exchange rate is determined, dividing the subject into what determines the steady state and what determines the transition to steady state. The inadequacies of this model are examined, and an alternative “behavioral” model, which...

A country’s rise to economic dominance tends to be accompanied by its currency becoming a reference point, with other currencies tracking it implicitly or explicitly. For a sample comprising emerging-market economies, we show that in the last three years, the renminbi (RMB) has increasingly...

This paper examines the exchange rate regimes of East Asian countries since the initial shift by China to a controlled appreciation in July 2005, testing econometrically the weights of key currencies in the implicit baskets that appear to be targeted by East Asian monetary authorities. It finds,...

The macroeconomic regime implanted in Brazil during the second administration of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, and largely maintained by his successor, is typical of those of the advanced countries. The anchor is provided by an inflation-targeting regime (with a target inflation rate somewhat...

Prima facie, competitiveness adjustments in the eurozone, based on unit labor cost developments, appear sensible and in line with what the economic analyst might have predicted and the economic doctor might have ordered. But a broader and arguably better--Balassa-Samuelson-Penn (BSP)--framework...