In our recent Economic Policy article (Honohan and Lane, 2003), we argued that the strength of the US dollar 1999-2001 had an important impact on inflation divergence within the EMU and in particular the surge in Ireland’s inflation to over 7%. This hypothesis has been subjected to a grueling...

Despite anchoring the Irish monetary system to a common zone-wide exchange rate and interest rate, EMU has triggered sizable exchange rate and especially interest rate shocks to the Irish economy (albeit not appreciably greater than those experienced under previous exchange rate regimes)....

In credible target zone regimes, exchange rates should, according to Krugman's 1991 theory, spend a disproportionate amount of time near the edges of the fluctuation band. The major application of this theory has been to the European Monetary System (EMS), with several authors reporting that...

Although the worldwide growth in dollarization of bank deposits has recently slowed, it has already reached very high levels in dozens of countries. Building on earlier findings that allowed the main cross-country variations in the share of dollars to be explained in terms of national policies...

There has been a resurgence of interest in currency boards as a possible approach to achieving a stable currency in newly established or hyperinflationary financial systems. This paper draws attention to one of the more successful currency board experiences, namely that of Ireland. We review the...

Conventional PPP-adjusted real output measures, invaluable for making international comparisons of living standards, may greatly exaggerate the productive capacity of poor countries. The equilibrium prices of an hypothetical world of full economic integration provide an instructive basis for...

Like all major currencies, the euro will attract a fringe of hangers-on. Though this need not influence overall policy with regard to the value of the euro, important policy questions arise. Can EMU members gain from cooperative arrangements for influencing or supporting fringe currencies? If...

The period preceding the global financial crisis was characterized by a substantial widening of current account imbalances across the world. Since the onset of the crisis, these imbalances have contracted to a significant extent. In this paper, we analyze the ongoing process of external...

We document and assess the role of small financial centers in the international financial system using a newly-assembled dataset. We present estimates of the foreign asset and liability positions for a number of the most important small financial centers, and place these into context by...

This Paper develops an empirical model of bilateral exchange rate volatility. We conjecture that for developing economies, external financial liabilities have an important effect on desired bilateral exchange rate volatility, above and beyond the standard Optimal Currency Area (OCA) factors. By...