Official holdings of US dollar reserves are partly invested outside the United States. These offshore investments do not strictly speaking finance the US current account, but do support the US dollar. Offshore holdings grow fast when intervention is large

The main strength of today's international monetary system – its flexibility and adaptability to the different needs of its users – can also become its weakness, as it may contribute to unsustainable growth models and imbalances. The global financial crisis has shown that the system cannot...

Superficial examination of aggregate gross cross-border capital inflow data suggests that therewas no substitution between portfolio inflows and bank loans in recent years. However, ournovel analysis of disaggregate inflows (both by types of instrument and borrower) showsinteresting...

Decisions by arbitral tribunals in investment treaty cases do not have formal precedential status. Yet certain issues recur, and prior decisions at the least provide guidance to later tribunals. The content of the most frequently invoked substantive treaty provisions - the obligations to accord...

In recent months, sovereign wealth funds have received much attention and criticism on the world stage. This paper analyzes these funds from a multidimensional perspective, showing their relative size, origins, history, strategies, and what regulatory oversight they have. Next, it examines why...

How to manage capital inflows remains an important policy issue for many emerging market economies. This paper presents a brief survey of the literature on managing capital inflows, with a focus on developing and emerging market economies. The paper, after discussing the economic characteristics...

Recently, a dramatic accumulation in foreign exchange reserves has been widely observed in developing countries. This paper explores the possible long-run impacts of this trend on macroeconomic variables in developing countries. We analyze a simple open economy model where increased foreign...

This paper asks whether bonanzas (surges) in net capital inflows increase the probability of banking crises and whether this is necessarily through a lending boom mechanism. A fixed effects regression analysis indicates that a baseline bonanza, identified as a surge of one s.d. deviation from...

This paper asks whether bonanzas (surges) in net capital inflows increase the probability of banking crises and whether this is necessarily through a lending boom mechanism. A fixed effects regression analysis indicates that a baseline bonanza, identified as a surge of one standard deviation...

Should South-Mediterranean economies continue their financial integration in the world economy, considering their current stance and in view of the experiences of developed economies with the global financial crisis? The economies of the North-African rim, that is Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia,...