Historically, the world payments system has been dominated by a single currency accepted in the exchange of goods and assets among countries. In recent decades, the US dollar has played this role. The dollar acts as a 'vehicle currency' in the sense that agents in non-dollar economies will...

We analyze the gain from coordinating on inflation between currency areas. To do so, we integrate a monetary search model into open-economy macro to construct a microfoundation for exchange rates. Each currency derives a value from alleviating the difficulties in trade. With a matching process...

While in principle, international payments could be carried out using any currency or set of currencies, in practice, the U.S. dollar is predominant in international trade and financial flows. The dollar acts as a "vehicle currency" in the sense that agents in nondollar economies will generally...