US dollar credit is growing quickly outside the United States, especially in Asia, and in some economies it has outpaced overall credit growth. Cross-border sources of credit bear watching in view of their record of outgrowing overall credit in credit booms. Foreign currency and cross-border...

Global liquidity has become a key focus of international policy debates over recent years. The concept of global liquidity, however continues to be used in a variety of ways and this ambiguity can lead to potentially undesirable policy responses. This feature attempts to further the...

This feature argues that a combination of factors caused the surprising US dollar appreciation in the second half of 2008. Both the global flight to safety into US Treasury bills and the reversal of carry trades amidst the crisis were sources of dollar strength. In addition, the surge in dollar...

The financial crisis has led to a reconsideration of banks' global business models. This special feature draws on the BIS banking statistics to distinguish between "international" and "multinational" banks and the implied geographical funding patterns, and to consider how the crisis put these...

With major central banks having re-established temporary foreign exchange swap facilities to alleviate growing strains in short-term funding markets, European banks' US dollar funding patterns are back in the news. This article documents the persistence of these banks' aggregate US dollar...

This article outlines a broad framework for assessing system-wide funding risks and analysing banks' role in the transmission of shocks across countries. It highlights the need to complement essential data on banks' consolidated balance sheets with information that provides a geographically...

Emerging market sovereign bonds have become an important asset class for portfolio managers. A striking feature of the spreads on these bonds for different countries is that they tend to move in tandem over time. This paper investigates the extent to which these spreads can be explained by just...

The strength of housing markets around the world has helped to cushion the recent slowdown in global economic activity. How long should we expect this to continue? A sample of industrialised countries covering three decades allows us to explore this question through an analysis of major peaks in...

Over the past decade, many emerging markets have increased their dependence on credit from foreign banks. However, the ongoing financial crisis may prompt banks to reassess their exposures to these economies. Panel regression analysis of data since the early 1990s indicates that a deterioration...

Style analysis shows that as market conditions change so do the investment strategies of hedge funds. It also provides a simple indicator of hedge fund leverage that varies over time. The indicator suggests that leverage tended to be high in 1997-98 but lower more recently.