"Although many modern studies find large and significant effects of prior colonial status on bilateral trade, there is very little empirical research that has focused on the contemporaneous impact of empire on trade. We employ a new database of over 21,000 bilateral trade observations during the...

We test whether fixed exchange rate regimes are ever credible in emerging markets by analyzing the behavior of short-term domestic trade bills across countries during the classical gold standard period, the most widely used hard peg in modern financial history. We exploit the fact that global...

Theoretical models have suggested that sanctions may be important for enforcing sovereign debt contracts (Bulow and Rogoff, 1989a, 1989b). This paper examines the role of sanctions in promoting debt repayment during the classical gold standard period. We analyze a wide range of sanctions...