We describe in this essay why the gold standard and the euro are extreme forms of fixed exchange rates, and how these policies had their most potent effects in the worst peaceful economic periods in modern times. While we are lucky to have avoided another catastrophe like the Great Depression in...

This paper places current efforts at international economic policy coordination in historical perspective. It argues that successful cooperation is most likely in four sets of circumstances. First, when it centers on technical issues. Second, when cooperation is institutionalized - when...

Retirement saving accounts, particularly employer-provided 401(k) plans rapidly in the last decade. More than forty percent of workers are currently eligible for thesequot; plans, and over seventy percent of eligibles participate in these plans. The substantial andquot; ongoing accumulation of...

This paper examines the international financial relations of the interwar period to see what light this experience sheds on current concerns over international policy coordination. The analysis proceeds in three parts. The first part considers the role for policy coordination as viewed by...

Four explanations for secular stagnation are distinguished: a rise in global saving, slow population growth that makes investment less attractive, averse trends in technology and productivity growth, and a decline in the relative price of investment goods. A long view from economic history is...

We examine the impact of the Great Depression on the share of votes for right-wing anti-system parties in elections in the 1920s and 1930s. We confirm the existence of a link between political extremism and economic hard times as captured by growth or contraction of the economy. What mattered...