We try to contribute to both the finance-growth literature and the community banking literature by testing the effects of the relative health of community banks on economic growth, and investigating potential transmission mechanisms for these effects using data from 1993-2000 on 49 nations. Data...

We address the causes, consequences, and implications of the cross-border consolidation of financial institutions by reviewing several hundred studies, providing comparative international data, and estimating cross-border banking efficiency in France, Germany, Spain, the U.K., and the U.S....

This paper assesses some of the explanations that have been put forward for the global pattern of current account imbalances that has emerged in recent years: in particular, the large U.S. current account deficit and the large surpluses of the Asian developing economies. Based on the approach...

This paper examines the role of exchange rate changes in the international economic adjustment and policy process. The pre-1973 academic literature on flexible exchange rates is examined in light of the experience since 1973. Some thoughts on the efficacy and appropriate role of exchange rate...

The general view of the economics profession is that we can not explain exchange rate movements. However, some researchers still contend that the relationship between real interest rates and the real exchange rate is a useful framework for thinking about exchange rate movements. This paper asks...

To provide insight into the accuracy of U.S. data on international equity transactions, we compare estimates of U.S. holdings of equities in over 40 countries with actual holdings given by comprehensive U.S. benchmark surveys. If the rate of return used to revalue U.S. holdings in a given...

National treatment, which precludes the use of rules that discriminate between foreign and domestic firms, seeks to ensure equality of competitive opportunity for foreign firms entering or operating in a host country. National treatment is a generally accepted principle for international trade...

An unresolved issue in international macroeconomics is the apparent lack of risk-sharing across countries, which contradicts the prediction of models based on the assumption of complete markets. We assess the importance of financial frictions in this issue by constructing an incomplete market...

The welfare gains from international coordination of monetary policy are analysed in a two-country model with sticky prices. The gains from coordination are compared under two alternative structures for financial markets: financial autarky and risk sharing. The welfare gains from coordination...