Although many modern studies find large and significant effects of prior colonial status on bilateral trade, there is very little empirical research that has focused on the contemporaneous impact of empire on trade. We employ a new database of over 21,000 bilateral trade observations during the...

As we witness profound changes in the global economy, and as it becomes apparent that the so-called “Revived Bretton Woods System” may be nothing more than a temporary non sustainable financing of the US structural internal imbalance, favored by the global role of the dollar, which has...

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a cooperative institution established to meet the common objectives of international financial stability and economic growth. The IMF's legitimacy and effectiveness in fulfilling these objectives depends critically on its ability to adequately represent...

The European sovereign debt crisis revived the discussion concerning pros and cons of exchange rate adjustment in the face of asymmetric shocks. In the spirit of keynes, exit from the euro area is to regain rapidly international competitiveness. In the spirit of Schumpeter, exhange rate...

The direct reason for writing this study was to draw conclusions of the Great Depression for the present crisis that started in 2008 and which continues to the present day. My goal is to present international, primarily Anglo-saxon monographs and studies on the topic that apply methodologies and...

The emergence of the gold standard has for a long time been viewed as inevitable. Fluctuations of the gold-silver exchange rate in world markets were accused to lead to brutal and unsustainable switches of bimetallic countries’ money supplies. However, more recent work has shown that the...

The emergence of the gold standard has for a long time been viewed as inevitable. Fluctuations of the gold-silver exchange rate in world markets were accused to lead to brutal and unsustainable switches of bimetallic countries’ money supplies. However, more recent work has shown that the...

We document that the global scope and depth of the crisis the began with the collapse of the subprime mortgage market in the summer of 2007 is unprecedented in the post World War II era and, as such, the most relevant comparison benchmark is the Great Depression (or the Great Contraction, as...

The paper investigates the links between the European Monetary Integration and the ongoing specificities and partial autonomy of industrial relations, labour markets and labour regimes at the national level. This is a follow up of John Hicks (1955) paper arguing that the Thirties experienced the...

We use a standard metric from international finance, the currency risk premium, to assess the credibility of fixed exchange rates during the classical gold standard era. Theory suggests that a completely credible and permanent commitment to join the gold standard would have zero currency risk or...