In this paper we examine the international implications of monetary union in the European Community (EMU), and the associated international costs and benefits. We consider prospective changes in international institutions, the potential role of the ecu as an international currency, and the...

This paper addresses the puzzle of regime-dependent volatility in foreign exchange. We extend the literature in two ways. First, our microstructural model provides a qualitatively new explanation for the puzzle. Second, we test implications of our model using Europe's recent shift to rigidly...

We examine international equity allocations at the fund level and show how different returns on the foreign and domestic proportion of portfolios determine rebalancing behavior and trigger capital flows. We document the heterogeneity of rebalancing across fund types, its greater intensity under...

This paper is concerned with the reasons why some currencies, such as the pound sterling and the U.S. dollar, have come to serve as "vehicles" for exchanges of other currencies. It develops a three-country model of payments equilibrium with transaction costs, and shows how one currency can...

In the past fifteen years key exchange rates have moved in larger and more persistent ways than advocates of flexible rates in the late 1960s would have left anyone free to imagine. Certainly there was no expectation of constancy for nominal exchange rates. But real exchange rate movements of 30...

This paper applies the analytical framework of the monetary approach to exchange rate determination to the analysis of the Dollar/Pound exchange rate during the first part of the 1920's. The analysis uses monthly data up to the return of Britain to gold in 1925. The equilibrium exchange rate is...

The modern notion of an international currency involves use in areas of international finance and trade that extend well beyond central banks' coffers. In addition to their important roles as foreign exchange reserves, international currencies are most frequently used to denominate corporate and...