We use a cross-country panel framework to analyze the effect of net official flows (chiefly foreign exchange intervention) on current accounts. We find that net official flows have a large but plausible effect on current account balances. The estimated effects are larger with instrumental...

The amount of assets held by the Federal Reserve has dramatically increased since 2009. It recently crossed $4 trillion and will likely peak at about $4.5 trillion. This increase is the result of the Fed's large-scale asset purchase programs, which were intended to support economic growth....

More than 20 countries have increased their aggregate foreign exchange reserves and other official foreign assets by an annual average of nearly $1 trillion in recent years. This buildup—mainly through intervention in the foreign exchange markets—keeps the currencies of the interveners...

Over the past 10 years, central banks and governments throughout the developing world have accumulated foreign exchange reserves and other official assets at an unprecedented rate. This paper shows that this official asset accumulation has driven a substantial portion of the recent large global...

Volatile exchange rates and how to manage them are a contentious topic whenever economic policymakers gather in international meetings. This book examines the broad parameters of exchange rate policy in light of both high-powered theory and real-world experience. What are the costs and benefits...

This study addresses a fundamentally new feature of the contemporary world economy: the simultaneous buildup of very large public deficits and debt positions in virtually all of the advanced high-income countries. The recent global financial crisis sharply accelerated this fiscal deterioration,...

Widespread currency manipulation, mainly in developing and newly industrialized economies, is the most important development of the past decade in international financial markets. In an attempt to hold down the values of their currencies, governments are distorting capital flows by around $1.5...

Official purchases of foreign assets--a broad definition of currency intervention--are strongly correlated with current account (trade) imbalances. Causality runs in both directions, but statistical analysis using instrumental variables reveals that the effect of official asset purchases on...

Five years after the Federal Reserve and Treasury allowed the investment bank Lehman Brothers to fail, while rescuing Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and AIG, their actions (or inaction) remain a focus of debate. Cline and Gagnon present evidence that federal officials, at least in...

Inflation targeting countries with flexible exchange rates performed better during the global financial crisis and its aftermath than countries with a fixed exchange rate. Countries that maintained a hard fixed exchange rate throughout the past six years performed somewhat better than those that...