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, exerting...

This paper offers new evidence on the emergence of the dollar as the leading international currency, focusing on its role as currency of denomination in global bond markets. We show that the dollar overtook sterling much earlier than commonly supposed, as early as in 1929. Financial market...

Since the introduction of the euro in January 1999, exchange rate stability at the periphery of the euro area is growing. The paper investigates the impact of exchange rate stability on growth for a sample of 41 mostly small open economies at the EMU periphery. It identifies international trade,...

Voting power methodology offers insights to understand coalition building in collective decision making. Using cooperative game theory, Banzhaf (1965) developed an index to capture the numerical importance of voters in coalition building. This voting power index is still widely used today in...

This paper analyses the impact of the shift away from a US dollar focus of systemically important emerging market economies (EMEs) on configurations between the US dollar, the euro and the yen. Given the difficulty that fixed or managed US dollar exchange rate regimes remain pervasive and...

This paper presents a new concept – the global roles of currencies. The concept combines the domestic and international (cross-border) use of currencies and therefore captures the overall importance of different currencies in a globalised economy. The measure of a currency’s global role is...

The paper discusses global imbalances under the aspect of an asymmetric world monetary system. It identifies the US and Germany as center countries with rising / high current account deficits (US) and surpluses (Germany). These are matched by current account surpluses of countries stabilizing...

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,...

Since the introduction of the euro in January 1999, exchange rate stability at the periphery of the euro area is growing. The paper investigates the impact of exchange rate stability on growth for a sample of 41 mostly small open economies at the EMU periphery. It identifies international trade,...