Recent research suggests that adopting a common currency increases bilateral trade. In this paper, I explore experiences of currency union entry in the post-war period and find no effect on trade. Previous results derived from a large panel data set (covering more than 200 countries from 1948...

The financial crisis in Europe has resulted in a new assessment of monetary and financial integration both in Europe and in Asia. Before the current crisis, regional integration in monetary and fiscal affairs including mechanisms to stabilize exchange rates enjoyed a lot of academic and...

This paper analyzes the Euro crisis in light of the experience of center-periphery relations over the last 40 years of renewed financial globalization. The crisis shows the characteristic pattern evident in so many other crises in the developing world: i.e. “boom” and “bust” phases of...

Latin America's trade relationships have been severely strained by the series of uncoordinated currency depreciations within the region since the Asian Crisis spilled over into Brazil in 1999 and by large swings in G-3 exchange rates. Large depreciations, whether forced by capital markets or...

In this paper we examine changes on investment decisions induced by the introduction of the Euro. There are two potential sources of portfolio reallocation. First, the introduction of the Euro diminished exchange rate risks within the EMU region, which relieved European investors from currency...

The paper assesses the potential of currency transaction taxes (CTT, widely known as the Tobin tax), to raise revenue for global development. Though Tobin proposed and others assessed CTTs in terms of reducing exchange rate volatility and improving macroeconomic policy environments, this paper...

This paper evaluates the consequences of the integration of international asset markets when goods markets are characterized by price rigidities. Using an open economy general equilibrium model with volatility in the money markets, we show that such an integration is not universally beneficial....

Im vergangenen Jahrzehnt gingen beträchtliche Kapitalströme aus den entwickelten Volkswirtschaften mit einem starken Kreditwachstum in den Ländern des westlichen Balkans, der Türkei und den GUS einher. Dennoch konnten fast alle Länder der Region ungeachtet ihrer unterschiedlichen...

This paper proposes a comprehensive yet evolutionary reform of the global monetary non-system that evolved out of the breakdown of the original Bretton Woods arrangement in the early 1970s. It includes: (i) a global reserve system that mixes the multi-currency arrangement with an active use of...

This paper contributes to the understanding of the international financial linkages created by US banks by looking at the geographical composition and structure of the balance sheet of foreign branches. The empirical investigation, which is based on a novel dataset containing balance sheet...