The latest estimates of fundamental equilibrium exchange rates (FEERs) in this semiannual series indicate that the currencies of the United States, the euro area, China, and Japan are approximately at their FEER levels and need no adjustment to reduce excessive external imbalances. The...

Laments over the decline of the manufacturing base in the United States are widespread. But while manufacturing employment has steadily declined for many decades, more direct measures of manufacturing productivity show that the growth of the US manufacturing sector has actually been strong and...

More than 20 countries have increased their aggregate foreign exchange reserves and other official foreign assets by an annual average of nearly $1 trillion in recent years. This buildup—mainly through intervention in the foreign exchange markets—keeps the currencies of the interveners...

Exchange rates are often described as overvalued or undervalued. But how do we make these judgments, and how do we assess by how much an exchange rate is misaligned? These questions have reemerged as central to the international macropolicy debate as the dollar continues to appreciate, the yen...

Germany has the best functioning labor market among large economies in the West. In the eyes of some, however, its success comes with a price. Questions have been raised over whether Germany’s labor reforms have lowered living standards, especially for low-income workers, worsening income...

Four years ago, President Barack Obama set the goal of doubling exports within five years and creating 2 million new export-related jobs. The strategy put in place, however, has failed to achieve superior growth. Freund argues that the emphasis on small and medium enterprises in the National...

Women have come a long way in sports, as the recent winter Olympics demonstrated, but more progress is called for. Studies show that girls with access to sports reap far-reaching benefits throughout their lives. Girls who play sports do better in school, suffer fewer health problems, achieve...

Hyperinflation—usually 1,000 percent or more a year—occurs only under very special circumstances: in a disorderly breakup of a currency zone; after wars or revolutions, when monetary or fiscal authorities lack control; and when wild populism prevails. Åslund reviews the historical record and...

This study suggests that Asian emerging-market economies now have financial sectors relatively unlikely to provoke new financial crises, either because of reforms after the late-1990s East Asian financial crisis or because of the dominance of state-owned banks not subject to bank runs. Financial...

This paper empirically investigates US-India labor migration and finds that it dominates permanent and temporary employment-based migration to the United States. The true economic value of temporary high-skilled Indian workers in the United States, based on a new visa data based methodology, is...