Over the last decade, the economic linkages between Switzerland and the rest of the world have been transformed. First, merchanting and the chemical industry account for an increasing share of international trade, with chemicals exports expanding robustly in recent years despite the European...

This article explores the interplay between economic hegemony and political alignment. Using theoretical and empirical insights from Broner et al. (2024), we posit that hegemonic states, such as the U.S., foster political alignment, which enhances globalization. We use UN voting data to proxy...

We examine the differential effects of financial status and exporting activity on the likelihood of survival for firms in the UK and France - two countries with different financial systems. We aim to answer two main questions: What is the direct impact of financial characteristics and different...

How should monetary policy be optimally designed in an environment with high degrees of financial globalization? To answer this question we lay down an open economy model where net lending toward the rest of the world is constrained by a collateral constraint motivated by limited enforcement....

Processes of regional economic integration have been shaping the economic relations between countries significantly during the last decades. In addition, an increasing integration of the national economies into the global economy has affected these economic relations, too. In an effort to...

In a series of summits, leading countries of the world will meet to draw up an international arrangement for financial stability. Such a rule system should prevent a financial crisis as we have seen it in 2007 and 2008. It should include appropriate principles of monetary policy, rules for...

The German current account balance has moved from surplus to deßcit in the course of unificalion. A theorelical model for the current account, encompassing the elaslicities, the monetary, and the absorptions approach, is set up and lested for Germany and the United States, using cointegration...

Sovereign governments owe debt to many foreign creditors and can choose which creditors to favor when making payments. This paper documents the de facto seniority structure of sovereign debt using new data on defaults (missed payments or arrears) and creditor losses in debt restructuring...

This paper studies external sovereign bonds as an asset class. We compile a new database of 266,000 monthly prices of foreign-currency government bonds traded in London and New York between 1815 (the Battle of Waterloo) and 2016, covering up to 91 countries. Our main insight is that, as in...