A discussion of the traditional structure-performance theory and the contestable market theory as they pertain to competition and bank profitability in the banking industry. The author uses data from a sample of Ohio and Pennsylvania banks.

An examination of bank profitability in a four-state region and a discussion of institutional, operational, and locational differences between the most profitable and least profitable banks.

A discussion of how thrift competition affects the earnings of banks, using data from a sample of 314 banks from a 14-state area.

An examination of arguments for and against the suggestion that nations should return to a Bretton Woods-type system of fixed exchange rates.

An examination of the Federal Reserve's intervention successes in the late 1980s, showing that, although the characteristic day-to-day fluctuations in exchange rates virtually ensured that a large share of these interventions would appear successful--purely by chance and even in the absence of a...

An argument that for countries with well-developed money markets and flexible exchange rates, there is little to be gained from holding a vast foreign exchange portfolio and intervening in the world's currency markets.

When short-term interest rates hover near zero, central banks may have difficulty offsetting downward momentum on prices and economic activity through traditional monetary-policy channels, since commercial banks have little incentive to make loans. Economists refer to this situation as a...

An examination of causality between dollar exchange-rate movements and U.S. price levels as described by the relative purchasing power parity theory, with a discussion of channels of price pressure and of the Hooper-Lowrey method of estimating future trends of the dollar.

The increasingly controversial Exchange Stabilization Fund is used to influence the international value of the U.S. dollar and to provide aid to foreign countries. The debate surrounding the Fund will become more informed, the authors suggest, when observers understand how to calculate the total...

A discussion of three channels through which U.S. intervention policy could theoretically influence the foreign-exchange market: the monetary channel, the portfolio-adjustment channel, and the expectations channel.