Egypt's nationalization of the Suez Canal in 1956 and the failed attempt by France, Israel, and the United Kingdom to retake it by force constituted a serious political crisis with significant economic consequences. For the United Kingdom, it engendered a financial crisis as well. That all four...

Egypt's nationalization of the Suez Canal in 1956 and the failed attempt by France, Israel, and the United Kingdom to retake it by force constituted a serious political crisis with significant economic consequences. For the United Kingdom, it engendered a financial crisis as well. That all four...

The past 35 years have been the most tumultuous in international monetary history. Nearly one hundred national banking systems collapsed, many more than in any comparable previous period. The range of movement in market exchange rates and the extent of the deviations of market exchange rates...

The past 35 years have been the most tumultuous in international monetary history. Nearly one hundred national banking systems collapsed, many more than in any comparable previous period. The range of movement in market exchange rates and the extent of the deviations of market exchange rates...

Historically, real exchange rate variability has been higher under flexible than under fixed exchange rates. Two explanations have been put forward. The neo-Keynesian view focuses on the interaction of volatile nominal exchange rates with sticky prices. The neoclassical approach maintains the...

The paper discusses the use of foreign exchange swaps by central banks. Such use has aimed at affecting domestic liquidity, managing foreign exchange reserves, and stimulating domestic financial markets. The discussion is illustrated using selected countries. The paper cautions about the use of...

Credibility and financing problems are important reasons why countries may seek to involve external institutions in the design and implementation of stabilization programs. In particular, governments may rely on external institutions to "enforce" programs that would otherwise lack credibility....

Structural vector autoregressions are used to analyze the relationship between real output and relative prices within the European Union and the United States. Relative price variability appears to be more important for adjustment within the European Union than in the United States, reflecting...