The share of U.S. dollar assets in the official foreign exchange reserve portfolios of central banks is sometimes taken as an indicator of dollar status. We show that the observed decline in the aggregate share of U.S. dollar assets does not stem from a systematic shift in currency preferences...

Why did monetary authorities hold large gold reserves under Bretton Woods (1944-1971) when only the US had to? We argue that gold holdings were driven by institutional memory and persistent habits of central bankers. Countries continued to back currency in circulation with gold reserves,...

The 1990s currency debacles revitalized the search for early warning and forward-looking indicators of financial vulnerabilities. This paper contributes to this task by proposing an approach to assess central bank solvency and to examine the factors putting it at risk, and by refining the...

We develop a simple measure of international ownership linkages and show that this measure is of similar importance as the traditional effects coming from country and industry fundamentals. International ownership linkages are not explained by omitted country/industry variations, wealth effects...

We develop a simple measure of international ownership linkages and show that this measure is of similar importance as the traditional effects coming from country and industry fundamentals. International ownership linkages are not explained by omitted country/industry variations, wealth effects...

We develop a simple measure of international ownership linkages and show that this measure is of similar importance as the traditional effects coming from country and industry fundamentals. International ownership linkages are not explained by omitted country/industry variations, wealth effects...

We develop a simple measure of international ownership linkages and show that this measure is of similar importance as the traditional effects coming from country and industry fundamentals. International ownership linkages are not explained by omitted country/industry variations, wealth effects...

We use a cross-country panel framework to analyze the effect of net official flows (chiefly foreign exchange intervention) on current accounts. We find that net official flows have a large but plausible effect on current account balances. The estimated effects are larger with instrumental...

We have documented a regime change in the U.S. Treasury market post-Global Financial Crisis (GFC). We first derived bounds on Treasury yields that account for dealer balance sheet costs, which we call the net short and net long curves. We show that actual Treasury yields moved from the net short...

This paper argues that using gold as collateral for highly distressed bonds would bring great benefits to the euro area in terms of reduced financing costs and bridge-financing. It is mindful of the legal issues that this will raise and that such a suggestion will be highly controversial....