We propose a "debt view" to explain the dominant international role of the dollar. We develop an international general equilibrium model in which firms optimally choose the currency composition of their nominal debt. Expansionary monetary policy in downturns prevents Fisherian debt deflation...

We document that observed international input-output linkages contribute substantially to synchronizing producer price inflation (PPI) across countries. Using a multi-country, industry-level dataset that combines information on PPI and exchange rates with international and domestic input-output...

Historically, sovereign debt in local currency has been considered safer than debt in foreign currency. Yet the literature offers scant theoretical or empirical guidance as to why such a gap exists, or why it appears to have slowly and steadily diminished for all regions over the past two...

Triffin gained enormous influence by reviving the interwar story that gold scarcity threatened deflation. In particular, he held that central banks needed to accumulate claims on the United States to back money growth. But the claims would eventually surpass the US gold stock and then central...

We employ a rarely available high-frequency micro dataset to study the impact of foreign exchange intervention on domestic credit growth. We find that sterilised purchases of dollars by the central bank dampens the flow of new domestic corporate loans in Colombia. Slowing the pace of currency...

This study divides the world into currency zones according to the co-movement of each currency with the key currencies. The dollar zone groups economies that produce well over half of global GDP. The euro zone now includes almost all of Europe and some commodity producers, but remains less than...

This paper explores the evolving relationship between central banks and governments in the European monetary unification process. In particular, it focuses on the institution-building phase (setting up of the ECB) and the monetary and macro-economic policy mix within EMU. I attribute the...

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 develop a general equilibrium model with intermediaries at the heart of international financial markets. In our model, intermediaries bargain with their customers and extract rents for providing access to foreign claims. The behavior of intermediaries, by tilting state prices, generates an...

Is systematic monetary policy a driver of the forward premium puzzle, i.e. the tendency of high interest-rate currencies to appreciate, thus strongly violating Uncovered Interest Parity (UIP)? We address this question by studying a battery of monetary policy rules in a small open economy that is...