We analyse patterns of bilateral financial investment using data on US holdings of foreign bonds. We document a “history effect” in which holdings seven decades ago continue to influence holdings today. 10–15% of the cross-country variation in US investors' foreign bond holdings is...

Four explanations for secular stagnation are distinguished: a rise in global saving, slow population growth that makes investment less attractive, averse trends in technology and productivity growth, and a decline in the relative price of investment goods. A long view from economic history is...

This article adopts economics as a perspective from which to view recent research in international relations. The most telling difference between international relations and economics, it argues, is in the connection between theory and empirical work. The strength of economics is the...

We examine the impact of the Great Depression on the share of votes for right-wing extremists in elections in the 1920s and 1930s. We confirm the existence of a link between political extremism and economic hard times as captured by growth or contraction of the economy. What mattered was not...

“The lessons of history” were widely invoked in 2008/09 as analysts and policymakers sought to make sense of the global financial crisis. Specifically, analogies with the early stages of the Great Depression of the 1930s were widely drawn. Building on work in cognitive science and literature...

Europe’s single currency is widely invoked as a potential solution to the monetary and exchange rate problems of other regions, including Asia, Latin America, North America and even Africa. This lecture asks whether the Europe’s experience in creating the euro is exportable. It...

Now that the decision has been taken to admit to the European Union eight of what were once called the transition economies, attention has naturally turned to whether these countries should also join Europe’s monetary union. But where is a consensus that joining the EU, while posing...

On January 1st, Europe’s monetary union will celebrate its fifth anniversary. Congratulations are not exactly pouring in. For going on two years, growth in the countries of the Euro Area has been significantly slower than in the United States. Unemployment over much of the continent...

This paper reviews the controversy over Europe’s Stability and Growth Pact and offers a proposal for its reform. It argues that Europe would be best served by focusing on the fundamental causes of unsustainable debts — public enterprises that are too big to fail, unfunded public...

This lecture considers how Europe’s monetary union will evolve in the next five to ten years. It concentrates on what is likely to be the most important change in that period, namely, the increasing number and heterogeneity of participating states. By 2006, less than four years from now,...