Facing a shortage of U.S. dollars and a growing need to support their dollar-denominated assets during the financial crisis, international firms increasingly turned to the foreign exchange swap market and other secured funding sources. An analysis of the ensuing strains in the swap market shows...

Economic announcements are an important source of information, containing news that spills over internationally across markets, affecting yields. An analysis of the U.S. and German sovereign bond markets finds that the largest moves in yields are associated with U.S. announcements on labor...

Concern is growing that the U.S. capital markets are losing market share to overseas competitors. A decline in foreign initial public offerings indeed suggests that the U.S. equity market is becoming less attractive to certain issuers. However, evidence on the competitiveness of the U.S. equity...

The institutional arrangements for trading and settling securities in Europe remain fragmented along national lines, making cross-border trading costly. Consolidation efforts are under way, however, and major market centers have now emerged in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Although...

With the growing appeal of cross-border trading in Europe, efforts are under way to establish consolidated exchanges that offer trading in stocks from many European countries. An analysis of these evolving pan-European exchanges suggests that consolidation could reduce the costs and...

On March 18, 1994, the Eastern Economic Association sponsored a roundtable discussion at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, to examine the future of the international monetary system in light of the aims of the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944. The title of the roundtable captured the central...

When the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston chose "Rethinking the International Monetary System" as the topic for its 43rd Economic Conference, it was clear that the worst international financial crisis in decades had caused tremors within the economics profession and the policymaking establishment....

The recent spate of severe financial crises has provoked an interest in international monetary reform not seen since the breakdown of the fixed exchange rate system 30 years ago. Indeed, the crises have forced both academic economists and policymakers to question some of their most basic...

With the U.S. trade deficit at high levels, many look to a dollar depreciation to curb the U.S. appetite for foreign goods by pushing up the cost of imports. Yet three factors -- the use of the dollar in invoicing U.S. trade, the market share concerns of exporters, and sizable U.S. distribution...