We document a decline in the dollar share of international reserves since the turn of the century. This decline reflects active portfolio diversification by central bank reserve managers; it is not a byproduct of changes in exchange rates and interest rates, of reserve accumulation by a small...

We consider public debt from a long-term historical perspective, showing how the purposes for which governments borrow have evolved over time. Periods when debt-to-GDP ratios rose explosively as a result of wars, depressions and financial crises also have a long history. Many of these episodes...

China’s high corporate savings rate is commonly claimed to be a key driver for the country’s large current account surplus. The mainstream explanation for high corporate savings is a combination of windfall profits in state-owned firms, especially in resource sectors, and mis-governance of...

Does country ""transparency"" affect international portfolio investment? We examine this and related questions using a unique micro dataset on international portfolio holdings. We employ various indices of government and corporate transparency, focusing on the availability and quality of...

This paper studies the role of insider trading in explaining cross-country differences in stock market volatility. The central finding is that countries with more prevalent insider trading have more volatile stock markets, even after one controls for liquidity/maturity of the market and the...