The increase in the TARGET2 balance for the Bundesbank has led to a debate in Germany about the appropriate interpretation and policy response, if any. In this paper we review the evidence for the current account financing interpretation, and find it wanting in explaining the data in 2012. BIS...

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 Chinese authorities described the management of the renminbi after its 2005 unpegging from the US dollar as involving a basket of trading partner currencies. Outside analysts have detected few signs of such management. We find that, in the two years from mid-2006 to mid-2008, the renminbi...

We show in this paper that offshore markets intermediate a large chunk of financial transactions in major reserve currencies such as the US dollar. We argue that, for emerging market economies that are interested in seeing some international use of their currencies, offshore markets can help to...