This paper presents empirical evidence on the interrelationship that exists between the evolution of the Emerging Markets Bonds Index (EMBI) and some macroeconomic variables in seven Latin American countries; two of them (Ecuador and Panama), full dollarized. We make use of a Cointegrated Vector...

With European Monetary Union (EMU), there was an increase in the adjusted spreads (corrected from the foreign exchange risk) of euro participating countries’ sovereign securities over Germany and a decrease in those of non-euro countries. The objective of this paper is to study the reasons for...

With the beginning of the European Monetary Union (EMU), euro-area sovereign securities’ adjusted spreads over Germany (corrected from the foreign exchange risk) experienced an increase that caused a lower than expected decline in borrowing costs. The objective of this paper is to study what...

This paper examines the sources of real exchange rate (RER) volatility in eighty countries around the world, during the period 1970 to 2011. Our main goal is to explore the role of nominal exchange rate regimes and financial crises in explaining the RER volatility. To that end, we employ two...

We develop a genetic algorithm that is able to find the optimal sequence of exchange rates that maximizes arbitrage profits with more than three currencies, being both the triangular arbitrage and the direct exchange rate two special cases of the proposed algorithm. Applying the algorithm to the...

Based on a dataset of 123 economies, both developed and developing countries, this paper investigates the relation between exchange-rate regimes and inflation performance. Our results suggest that those countries with flexible exchange-rate regimes are characterized by higher inflation rates,...

Based on a dataset of 123 economies, this paper empirically investigates the relation between exchange-rate regimes and economic growth. We find that growth performance is best under intermediate exchange rate regimes, while the smallest growth rates are associated with flexible exchange rates....

This paper investigates the convergence in real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth focusing on the impact of financial crises (i.e. banking crises, currency crises and debt crises) and nominal exchange rate regimes (i.e. fixed, intermediate and flexible) on convergence. To that end, we compute...

This paper tries to shed light on the historical analogies of the current crisis. To that end we compare the current sample distribution of Dow Jones Industrial Average Index returns for a 769-day period (from 15 September 2008, the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, to September 2011), with all...

This paper analyses the functioning of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). To that end, we apply duration models to estimate an augmented target-zone model, explicitly incorporating political and institutional factors into the explanation of European exchange rate policies. The...