This paper studies how uncertainty about fundamentals contributed to currency crises from both a theoretical and an empirical perspective. We find evidence - based on a monthly dataset of Consensus forecasts for six Asian countries in the period January 1995-May 2001 - confirming the theoretical...

Episodes of increased global risk aversion, also known as risk-off episodes, have become more frequent and severe since 2007. During these episodes, currency markets exhibit recurrent patterns, as the Japanese yen, Swiss franc, and U.S. dollar appreciate against other G-10 and emerging market...

We present a model of a quot;softquot; exchange rate target zone and interpret it as a stylized description of the post-August 1993 ERM. Our central bank targets a moving average of the current and past exchange rates, rather than the exchange rate's current level, thus allowing the rate to move...

Financial 'euroization'-or 'dollarization' outside of Central and Eastern Europe-is typically analyzed as a singular phenomenon that can be traced to a common set of factors. This paper argues that two types of euroization need to be distinguished, which have different causes, economic...

This paper investigates empirically the drivers of financial imbalances ahead of the global financial crisis. Three factors may have contributed to the build-up of financial imbalances: (i) rising global imbalances (capital flows), (ii) monetary policy that might have been too loose, (iii)...

Global imbalances have been a central theme of the international economic policy debate for much of the last decade, prompted by large and sustained current account deficits in the U.S. and counterpart surpluses in China, Germany, and among many of the oil producers. This paper focuses on the...

Dark matter accounts for 83 percent of the matter in the universe and plays a central role in cosmology modeling. This paper argues that an analogous form of dark matter plays a similarly important role in international macroeconomics. Exchange-rate dark matter is invisible, but its existence...

The discussion of global and regional imbalances has put the spotlight on the possible link between current accounts and structural policies. Drawing on standard empirical current account models, the paper finds that the commonly recommended structural factors cannot explain the widening of...

The permanent income hypothesis implies that frictionless open economies with exhaustible natural resources should save abroad most of their resource windfalls and, therefore, feature current account surpluses. Resource-rich developing countries (RRDCs), on the other hand, face substantial...

After the 2003-2007 economic boom, European countries with large pre-crisis current account imbalances are undergoing adjustments. Countries are adjusting at different paces and ways reflecting the source and magnitude of imbalances, availability of financing, competitiveness of the tradable...