The renminbi (RMB) has become something of a buzzword that is mentioned in all discussions, despite the fact that the currency is not convertible. In fact, there are good reasons for its notoriety. First of all, it is the currency of an economy that within only a few years has become the biggest...

Central bank communication has become a hot topic as a consequence of the liberalization of financial markets and the move of central banks to market-oriented monetary instruments. The more market-oriented the instruments the more the central bank needs to rely on a good transmission of its...

Central bank communication is becoming a key aspect of monetary policy as a consequence of financial liberalization and the introduction of market instruments to conduct monetary policy. How much the market listens and, possibly, understands the People's Bank of China (PBoC) should be a key...

In this paper we review the key facts in the history of the International Monetary System in the 20th century to analyze the stability of what some authors have called “Bretton Woods II”, which describes the current fixed-exchange rate and export-led growth model of some Asian countries,...

In recent years efforts have been made to deepen financial links between emerging markets within individual regions. Such regional financial integration lags the integration of emerging markets with global markets, but authorities in Asia in particular are taking steps to accelerate the process

This paper shows empirically that China's trade balance is sensitive to fluctuations in the real effective exchange rate of the renminbi. However, the current size of the trade surplus is such that exchange rate policy alone will probably not be able to address the imbalance. The potential...

This paper seeks to understand why Asian foreign investment is concentrated in financial markets outside of the region instead of in Asian markets. We analyse empirically the geographical composition of the cross-border portfolio holdings of more than 40 source countries. We compare these...

This paper analyzes empirically what explains the low profitability of Chinese banks for the period 1997-2004. We find that better capitalized banks tend to be more profitable. The same is true for banks with a relatively larger share of deposits and for more X-efficient banks. In addition, a...

In this paper we investigate whether cross-sectional information from local equity markets contained information on devaluation expectations during the Asian crisis. We concentrate on the information content of equity prices as these markets were in general the largest and most liquid at the...

Three important external determinants of sovereign spreads in emerging countries are reviewed: balance sheet effects, global risk aversion and contagion. While there are ways to reduce the detrimental impact of balance sheet effects, these are either hard to implement or costly. Insurance...