Very low interest rates in major currencies have raised concerns over international credit flows to robustly growing economies in Asia. This paper examines three components of international credit and highlights several of the policy challenges that arise in constraining such credit. Our...

The paper examines possible monetary policy strategies for Latin America that may help lock-in the gains in the fight against inflation attained by the region during the 1990s. We start by calling for a refocus of the debate about the conduct of monetary policy away from thinking that it is...

This paper explores the record of central bank swaps to draw out four themes. First, this recent device of central bank cooperation had a sustained pre-history from 1962-1998, surviving the transition from fixed to floating exchange rates. Second, Federal Reserve swap facilities have generally...

We explore the link between firms' dollar bond borrowing and their FX-hedged funding opportunities, as reflected in a positive corporate basis (the relative cost of local to synthetic currency borrowing). Consistent with previous research, we first document that firms substitute domestic for...

We use unique firm level data from Mexico to document that non-financial corporations engage in carry trades by borrowing in foreign currency and lending in domestic currency, largely to related partners (trade credit), accumulating currency risk in the process. The interest rate differential...

Emerging market firms frequently borrow in foreign currency (FX), but their assets are often denominated in domestic currency. This behavior leads to an FX mismatch on firms balance sheets, which can harm their net worth in the event of a depreciation. I use a large, unanticipated, and exogenous...

This paper discusses whether Law 28300 of 2004, that required Peruvian firms to express their prices in Peru's currency in a context of high price dollarization, affected the exchange rate pass-through (ERPT). We hypothesize that the enactment of the Law introduced menu costs for firms that used...

We review extant work on the transmission of monetary policy, both conventional and unconventional, of the major advanced economies to East Asia through monetary policy reactions, integrated bond markets and induced currency appreciation. We present new results on the growth of foreign currency...

This paper pushes back against two views about the effects of dollarization. First, there is a view that the dollar is a device by which rich countries provide business cycle insurance to emerging market (EME) countries. We find that the dollar is important for risk sharing, but the evidence...

The paper explores optimizing models of small open economies that hold foreign money balances. Particular attention is paid to the impact of foreign inflation on the real exchange rate and other real variables. At first, an environment in which foreign money is the only traded asset is explored....