Trade finance, particularly in the form of short-term letters of credit has received favourable capital treatment new Basel III rules. However, concerns have been expressed over the potential negative "unintended consequences" of the newly created leverage ratio for trade. This paper offers a...

Asia, particularly its major economies has witnessed slower growth in recent years. To make Asia more economically sustainable and resilient against external shocks to recover from the falling growth, most regional economies need to rebalance their export-oriented (mostly to advanced economies)...

Our friend and colleague Rüdiger Dornbusch passed away before he was able tocomplete his book based on the Munich Lectures in Economics that he gave inNovember 17, 1998, at the Center for Economic Studies of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität.The lectures contain a fascinating overview of the...

A sketch of the International Monetary Fund's 70-year history reveals an institution that has reinvented itself over time along multiple dimensions. This history is primarily consistent with a "demand driven" theory of institutional change, as the needs of its clients and the type of crisis...

While the consequences and effectiveness of IMF conditionality have long been the focus of research, the possible negative impact of IMF conditionality on countries' willingness to ask for an IMF programme - often termed "IMF stigma" - has recently received attention particularly from policy...

We use the demise of silver-based standards in the 19th century to explore price dynamics when a commodity-based money ceases to function as a global unit of account. We develop a general equilibrium model of the global economy with gold and silver money. Calibration of the model shows that...

We study the evolution of offshore renminbi trading between 2016 and 2019. The diffusion behaviour of offshore renminbi trading during this period is different from the one between 2013 and 2016. The geographical diffusion process displayed in the 2016-2019 period, in addition to the previously...