The Gold Pool (1961-1968) was one of the most ambitious cases of central bank cooperation in history. Major central banks pooled interventions – sharing profits and losses – to stabilize the dollar price of gold. Why did it collapse? From at least 1964, the fate of the Pool was in fact tied...

This paper assesses the strength of business cycle synchronization between 1950 and 2014 in a sample of 21 countries using a new quarterly dataset based on IMF archival data. Contrary to the common wisdom, we find that the globalization period is not associated with more output synchronization...

This paper assesses the strength of business cycle synchronization between 1950 and 2014 in a sample of 21 countries using a new quarterly dataset based on IMF archival data. Contrary to the common wisdom, we find that the globalization period is not associated with more output synchronization...

Why did monetary authorities hold large gold reserves under Bretton Woods (1944-1971) when only the US had to? We argue that gold holdings were driven by institutional memory and persistent habits of central bankers. Countries continued to back currency in circulation with gold reserves,...

We estimate world cycles using a new quarterly dataset of output, credit and asset prices assembled using IMF archives and covering a large set of advanced and emerging economies since 1950. World cycles, both real and financial, exist and are generally driven by US shocks. But their impact is...

Are central banks able to isolate their domestic economy by offsetting the effects of foreign capital flows? We provide an answer for the First Age of Globalization based on an exceptionally detailed and standardized database of monthly balance sheets of all central banks in the world (i.e. 21)...