This paper proposes a new approach to identifying the effects of monetary policy shocks in an international vector autoregression. Using high-frequency data on the prices of eurodollar contracts, we measure the impact of the surprise component of the FOMC-day Federal Reserve policy decision on...

This paper assesses whether the international monetary system is already tripolar and centred around the US dollar, the euro and the Chinese renminbi (RMB). It focuses on what we call China’s “dominance hypothesis”, i.e. whether the renminbi is already the dominant currency in Asia,...

The empirical analysis of the paper suggests that an FX policy objective and concerns about an overheating of the domestic economy have been the two main motives for the (re-)introduction and persistence of capital controls over the past decade. Capital controls are strongly associated with...

Standard economic models hold that exchange rates are influenced by fundamental variables such as relative money supplies, outputs, inflation rates and interest rates. Nonetheless, it has been well documented that such variables little help predict changes in floating exchange rates -- that is,...

This paper assesses the contemporaneous, leading and lagging indicator properties of financial market variables relative to movements in six major developed country currency pairs. As indicator variables changes in various relative asset prices, short-term portfolio flows and currency options...

This paper investigates the determinants of the default risk premia embedded in the European credit default swap spreads. Using a modified version of the intertemporal capital asset pricing model, we show that default risk premia represent compensation for bearing exposure to systematic risk and...

As the global banking crisis intensified in the fall of 2008, governments announced comprehensive rescue packages for financial institutions. In this paper, we put the joint response of euro area bank and sovereign CDS premia under the microscope. We find that the bank rescue packages led to a...

I investigate the effect of transparency on the borrowing costs of Emerging Markets Economies. Transparency is measured by whether or not the countries publish the IMF Article IV Staff report and the Reports on the Observance of Standards and Codes (ROSC). Using difference-in-difference...

We assess whether the euro had an impact first on the degree of integration of European financial markets, and, second, on the euro area term structure. We propose two methodologies to measure integration: one relies on time-varying GARCH correlations, and the other one on a regression...