This paper reviews the first evidence on the impact of European Monetary Union on European capital markets, one year after the launch of the single currency. Our assessment of this evidence is very favourable. On almost all counts EMU has either already drastically changed the European financial...

This paper studies how U.S. monetary policy affects global stock prices. We find that global stock prices respond strongly to changes in U.S. interest rate policy, with stock prices increasing (decreasing) following unexpected monetary loosening (tightening). This impact is more pronounced for...

We use portfolio theory to quantify the efficiency of state-level sectoral patterns of production in the United States. On the basis of observed growth in sectoral value-added output, we calculate for each state the efficient frontier for investments in the real economy. We study how rapidly...

The paper considers the pros and cons for Canada of monetary union between Canada and the U.S. The current Canadian monetary arrangements, a flexible exchange rate and an inflation target, are contrasted both with a unilateral adoption by Canada of the U.S. dollar and with a full, formally...

In this paper we analyze the determinants of co-movements in stock returns among 40 developed and emerging markets, from the 1970s to the 1990s. We provide empirical estimates of the impact of bilateral indicators of economic integration such as bilateral trade intensity, the dissimilarity of...

This Paper reconsiders the 1992/3 crisis in the European Monetary System in light of its emerging market successors. That episode was a predecessor of the Mexican and Asian crises in the sense that both capital movements and domestic financial fragility played important roles. The output effects...

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...

We use portfolio theory to quantify the efficiency of state-level sectoral patterns of production in the United States. On the basis of observed growth in sectoral value added output, we calculate for each state the efficient frontier for investments in the real economy, the efficient Sharpe...

We measure the amount of income insurance and cross-sectional consumption smoothing (lending and borrowing) achieved within subgroups of states, such as regions or clubs, e.g. the club of rich states. We find that there is as much income insurance between, as well as within, regions. By...

We analyze contagious sovereign debt crises in financially integrated economies. Under financial integration banks optimally diversify their holdings of sovereign debt in an effort to minimize the costs with respect to an individual country's sovereign debt default. While diversification...