This paper addresses the popular view that differences in financial development explain the pattern of global current account imbalances. One strain of thinking explains the net flow of capital from developing to industrial economies on the basis of the industrial economies' more advanced...

We examine the impact of fiscal positions, both the level of debt and the fiscal balance, on long-term government bond yields in the OECD. In order to control for the endogenity of fiscal positions to the business cycle we utilize forward projections of fiscal positions from the OECD's Economic...

This study examines the impact of productivity growth on the relationship between inflation and unemployment in Canada. Recently it has been suggested that higher productivity growth is responsible for a shift in the U.S. Phillips curve that occurred in the late 1990s. This paper examines...

Empirical work regarding Intertemporal Current Account (ICA) models has centered around two distinct testing methodologies, present value tests and a productivity shock approach as formulated in Glick and Rogoff (1995). In previous work, Gruber (2001), I have tested an ICA model that allows for...

We purpose a novel explanation for the observed increase in the correlation of commodity prices over the past decade. In contrast to theories that rely on the increased influence of financial speculators, we show that price correlation can increase as a result of a decline in the interest rate....

Global and U.S. trade declined dramatically in the wake of the global financial crisis in late 2008 and early 2009. The subsequent recovery in trade, while vigorous at first, gradually lost momentum in 2010. Against this backdrop, this paper explores the prospects for global and U.S. trade in...

Much has been written about prospects for U.S. current account adjustment, including the possibility of what is sometimes referred to as a "disorderly correction": a sharp fall in the exchange rate that boosts interest rates, depresses stock prices, and weakens economic activity. This paper...

Considerable research has focused on explaining why currencies appreciate in real terms after the nominal exchange rate is stabilized, but this research generally has taken a theoretical approach, and rarely has tested its hypotheses empirically. In this paper I estimate a simple...

This paper examines the question of how the path of real GDP in four important Latin American countries, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico, might have differed if the sharp run-up in borrowing during the late 1970s and early 1980s had not occurred. Specifically, we ask whether these countries...

This paper surveys the development and operation of the parallel exchange market in Argentina during the 1980s, and evaluates its impact upon macroeconomic performance and policy. The historical evolution of Argentina's exchange market policies is reviewed in order to understand the government's...