In a monetary game played by he private sector and a central banks (CB), who has private information, reputation may not completely solver the CB time inconsistency problem. An alternative solution is CB Conservativeness. The optimal degree of CB Conservativeness is solved in both the...

The paper deals with the principal-agent relationship at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). We argue that residual control rights at the IMF are vested with the critical shareholders, the countries included in the G-7. This group controls vast financial resources and enjoys the highest...

Financial products are unstandardized and subject to a great deal of uncertainty. They tend to concentrate geographically because of the reduction in information costs resulting from close contacts. Concentration leads to economies of scale and encourages external economies. Great financial...

Karl Brunner (1916-1989) was, with Milton Friedman and Allan Meltzer, the leader of the monetarist revolution of the Sixties and the Seventies. His work on asset markets placed the credit market, along with the money market, at center stage and focused on monetary policy as a primary source of...

The historical record shows that financial crises are far from being a rare a phenomenon; they occur often enough to be considered part of the workings of finance capitalism. While there is no single hypothesis that can best explain all crises, the implications of the credit boom-and-bust...

We test the relationship between the size of regional trade agreements (RTAs) and openness by using a gravity equation with multilateral trade factors. Our sample includes 11 RTAs, seven with constant membership and four with expanding membership. Regional trade bias declines with the size of...