Money is a social convention where one party accepts it as payment in the expectation that others will do so too. Over the ages, various forms of private money have come and gone, giving way to central bank money. The reasons for the resilience of central bank money are of particular interest...

Exchange rate fluctuations influence economic activity not only via the standard trade channel, but also through a financial channel, which operates through the impact of exchange rate fluctuations on borrowers' balance sheets and lenders' risk-taking capacity. This paper explores the...

We consider the drivers and implications of the growth of "BigTech" in finance - ie the financial services offerings of technology companies with established presence in the market for digital services. BigTech firms often start with payments. Thereafter, some expand into the provision of...

We look back at past episodes of financial stress in Asia with a forward-looking perspective. We put ourselves in the shoes of a contemporary observer with the data at hand and ask what evidence was available on the systematic build-up of vulnerabilities. We reconstruct a graphical narrative of...

Currency appreciation against the US dollar is associated with the compression of emerging market economy (EME) sovereign yields. We find that this yield compression is due to reduced risk premiums rather than expectations of interest rates already priced into forward rates. We explore a model...

In analyzing the performance of the international monetary and financial system (IMFS), too much attention has been paid to the current account and far too little to the capital account. This is true of both formal analytical models and historical narratives. This approach may be reasonable when...

We investigate global factors associated with bank capital flows. We formulate a model of the international banking system where global banks interact with local banks. The solution highlights the bank leverage cycle as the determinant of the transmission of financial conditions across borders...

Dividend payouts affect the relative value of claims within a firm. When firms have contingent claims on each other, as in the banking sector, dividend payouts can shift the relative value of stakeholders' claims across firms. Through this channel, one bank's capital policy affects the equity...

There was a systemic failure of financial regulation: senior policymakers repeatedly enacted and implemented policies that destabilised the global financial system. They maintained these policies even as they learned of the consequences of their policies during the decade before the crisis. The...