This paper analyzes institutional arrangements for exchange rate systems and reviews what we know. It looks at the foreign exchange market, different balance of payment situations in which countries find themselves and the necessary exchange rate adjustments. It studies the options that are...

Financial crises can have a severe impact on the real side of the economy with countries losing up to 20 percent of GDP. The paper studies rules that prevent financial instability and currency crises. These include institutional arrangements for a solid banking system, prudent regulations and...

Despite the global financial crisis and the prospect of severe economic recession, debates on future financial regulation take little if any notice of reasons why the previous regime of financial regulation failed so spectacularly. The paper identifies the key presumptions underlying efforts to...

In this paper, original written for the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee (ECON) of the European Parliament on 30 November as part of the series entitled 'The threat of currency wars: global imbalances and their effects on currencies', Bruegel Fellows Jean Pisani-Ferry and Zsolt Darvas...

In this Policy Contribution, Jean Pisani-Ferry, takes a look at the way the IMF his gradually making its come-back from an era of crisis confidence and legitimacy. The author believes the Fund could gain a significant role as the key institution that links macroeconomic and financial...

In this timely policy contribution, Visiting Scholar Ignazio Angeloni suggests that the Pittsburgh G20 may represent policymakers' last chance at real financial market reform. He develops a shortlist of recommendations for world leaders to tackle at the summit and says that world leaders at the...

After World War II, all industrial countries have reached a level of prosperity unprecedented in history; many developing countries and several socialist countries have experienced notable economic growth too. The post-war multilateral trading and monetary systems have been singled out by...

Efforts to realize the issue of development-focused Special Drawing Rights (SDR) by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have been on-going for many years. Recently, however, the campaign first gained a new momentum immediately after the Asian financial crises with the new liquidity problems of...

Die hollowing-out Hypothese, auch bekannt unter den Bezeichnungen (two) corner solutions oder bipolar view, besagt, dass für Staaten mit weitgehend ungehindertem Kapitalverkehr nur Ecklösungen, also entweder extrem feste oder sehr flexible Wechselkursregime, langfristig tragbar sind. Mitte der...

The concept of trade openness is broadly applied as a potential predictor in numerous empirical studies, despite the fact that no commonly accepted approach of measuring openness has been developed. The most widely applied (‘traditional’) openness indices are not able to accurately calculate...