How will sovereign debt markets evolve in the 21st century? We survey how the literature has responded to the Eurozone debt crisis, placing "lessons learned" in historical perspective. The crisis featured: (i) the return of debt problems to advanced economies; (ii) a bank-sovereign "doom-loop"...

We document the outbreak of a trade war after the U.S. adopted the Smoot-Hawley tariff in June 1930. U.S. trade partners initially protested the possible implementation of the sweeping tariff legislation, with many eventually choosing to retaliate by increasing their tariffs on imports from the...

We develop a simple model that highlights the costs and benefits of fixed exchange rates as they relate to trade, and show that negative export-price shocks reduce fiscal revenue and increase the likelihood of an expected currency devaluation. Using a new high-frequency data set on...

We use the demise of silver-based standards in the 19th century to explore price dynamics when a commodity-based money ceases to function as a global unit of account. We develop a general equilibrium model of the global economy with gold and silver money. Calibration of the model shows that...