The last decade or so has seen a mushrooming of new sovereign debt databases covering long time spans for several countries. This represents an important breakthrough for economists who have long sought to, but been unable to tackle, first-order questions such as why countries have differential...

To ensure financial market stabilities, many Latin America countries implemented pure floating and inflation targeting (FIT) policies following the IMF's suggestions. The effectiveness of such policies is under investigation. This paper examines the long-run relationship between the real...

Using IV-GMM techniques and real-time data, we estimate a forward looking, Taylor-type reaction function incorporating dummy variables for even-keel operations and a variable for foreign official pressures on the U.S. gold stock during the Great Inflation. We show that when the Federal Reserve...

This paper investigates the major drivers of the public debt growth in 184 countries. Our analysis consists in a cross-country survey, which is conducted on the basis of the improved compilation of datasets on the central government debt for 2013. In order to differentiate between...

It is generally very difficult to measure the effects of a currency depreciation on a country%u2019s balance sheet and financing costs given the endogenous properties of the exchange rate. History provides at least one natural experiment to test whether an exogenous exchange rate depreciation...

Why did monetary authorities hold large gold reserves under Bretton Woods (1944-1971) when only the US had to? We argue that gold holdings were driven by institutional memory and persistent habits of central bankers. Countries continued to back currency in circulation with gold reserves,...

The deterioration in the U.S. balance of payments after 1957 and an accelerating loss of gold reserves prompted U.S. monetary authorities to undertake foreign-exchange-market interventions beginning in 1961. We discuss the events leading up to these interventions, the institutional arrangements...

By the early 1960s, outstanding U.S. dollar liabilities began to exceed the U.S. gold stock, suggesting that the United States could not completely maintain its pledge to convert dollars into gold at the official price. This raised uncertainty about the Bretton Woods parity grid, and speculation...

This study addresses the need for an early warning system of financial distress of nations, amply demonstrated by failures in Mexico and South East Asia. We find that financial ratios of failing nations, and those of failing corporations, display similar patterns. A neural network was trained on...

During the early part of the Great Inflation (1965-1975), the Federal Reserve undertook even-keel operations to assist the US Treasury’s coupon security sales. Accordingly, the central bank delayed any tightening of monetary policy and permanently injected reserves into the banking system....