Understanding the global financial crisis and the stresses on bank balance sheets requires a perspective on banks’ international investment positions and how these positions were funded across currencies and counterparties. This special feature uses the BIS international banking statistics to...

A striking and unexpected feature of the financial crisis has been the sharp appreciation of the US dollar against virtually all currencies globally. The paper finds that negative US-specific macroeconomic shocks during the crisis have triggered a significant strengthening of the US dollar,...