In this book leading economists and economic historians look at the history of the international monetary system, in particular the workings of the gold standard, to examine the implications for international monetary relations

The experience of the 1990s renewed economists’ interest in the role of credit in macroeconomic fluctuations. The locus classicus of the credit-boom view of economic cycles is the expansion of the 1920s and the Great Depression. In this paper we ask how well quantitative measures of the credit...

I. Background. 1 Introduction -- 2 A century of capital flows -- II. Capital account liberalization. 3 Capital account liberalization : what do the cross-country studies tell us? -- 4 When does capital account liberalization help more than it hurts? with Carlos Arteta and Charles Wyplosz -- III....