The international monetary system is largely the product of negotiations during World War II between U.S. and U.K. officials, led respectively by Harry Dexter White and John Maynard Keynes. The design of the system, especially the International Monetary Fund, reflects the U.S. plan much more...

In the early 1870s, the global monetary system transitioned from bimetallism-a regime in which gold and silver currencies were tied at quasi-fixed exhange ratios-to the gold standard that was characterized by the use of (only) gold as the main currency metal by the largest and most advanced...

After moving slowly downward for the better part of four decades, central bank gold holdings have risen since the Global Financial Crisis. We identify 14 "active diversifiers," defined as countries that purchased gold and raised its share in total reserves by at least 5 percentage points over...

Intro -- Contents -- I. INTRODUCTION -- II. MAIN OBJECTIVES OF THE BSA -- III. KEY FEATURES OF THE FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYSIS -- IV. DATA METHODOLOGIES AND AVAILABILITY FOR BALANCE SHEET ANALYSIS -- V. USING TIMELY, HIGH-FREQUENCY BALANCE SHEET ANALYSIS IN SURVEILLANCE -- VI. CONCLUSIONS -- REFERENCES.

Several emerging economies have, until recently, experienced large government surpluses and accelerating foreign exchange reserve accumulation. This has been accompanied by economic booms, exchange rate appreciations and in some cases increases in domestic inflation. We show that one way to...

This paper assembles a comprehensive dataset of the currency composition of countries' external balance sheets for 50 economies over the period 1990-2020. We document the following findings: (i) the US dollar and the euro still dominate global external balance sheets; (ii) there were striking...

The assessment of external positions and exchange rates of member countries is a key mandate of the IMF. The External Balance Assessment (EBA) methodology has provided the framework for conducting external sector assessments by Fund staff since its introduction in 2012. This paper provides the...

Intro -- Contents -- I. INTRODUCTION -- II. OUTLOOK FOR ENERGY PRODUCTION -- III. EXPORT PROSPECTS AND DUTCH DISEASE -- IV. EXCHANGE RATE EQUATION -- V. PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER -- VI. CONCLUSION -- APPENDIX I. Data -- References.

Intro -- Contents -- I. INTRODUCTION -- II. DATA AND METHODOLOGY -- III. INTERNATIONAL COMPARISONS -- IV. RESULTS ACROSS CANADIAN PROVINCES -- V. EXTENDING THE CANADIAN MODEL -- VI. CONCLUSIONS -- REFERENCES -- Data Appendix.