A growing recent theoretical literature advocates the use of prudential capital control policy, that is, the tightening of restrictions on cross-border capital flows during booms and the relaxation thereof during recessions. We examine the behavior of capital controls in a large number of...

Since the onset of the global financial crisis, China and the U.S. have reduced their current-account imbalances as a share of GDP to less than half their pre-crisis levels. For China, the reduction in its current-account surplus post-crisis suggests a structural change. Panel regressions for a...

Does membership in a currency union matter for a country's international relative prices? The answer to this question is critical for thinking about the implications of joining (or exiting) a common currency area. This paper is the first to use high-frequency good-level data to provide evidence...

We provide a comprehensive account of the dynamics of eurozone countries from 2000 to 2012. We analyze private leverage, fiscal policy, labor costs and interest rates and we propose a strategy to separate the impact of credit cycles, excessive government spending, and sudden stops. We then ask...

Differences in real interest rates across developed economies are puzzlingly large and persistent. I propose a simple explanation: Bonds issued in the currencies of larger economies are expensive because they insure against shocks that affect a larger fraction of the world economy. I show that...

We use changes in Brazil's tax on capital inflows from 2006 to 2011 to test for direct portfolio effects and externalities from capital controls on investor portfolios. The analysis is structured based on information from investor interviews. We find that an increase in Brazil's tax on foreign...

What are the macroeconomic consequences of the dominant role of the dollar in the international monetary system? Here, we present a calibrated two country model in which exports are invoiced in the key currency, and government bonds denominated in the key currency are held internationally to...

When countries open their stock markets to foreign investors, firms that become eligible for purchase by foreigners (investible) are repriced according to the difference in the covariance of their returns with the local and world market. An investible firm whose return covariance with the local...

The pattern of international trade adjustment is affected by the continuing international role of the dollar and related evidence on exchange rate pass-through into prices. This paper argues that a depreciation of the dollar would have asymmetric effects on flows between the United States and...

The paper offers comments on Obstfeld and Rogoff (2000). The comments primarily focus on three issues: (a) How do we reconcile the numerical examples of OR, which show quantitatively plausible resolutions to the major puzzles arising from costs of trade, with previous studies that have found...