We show that quot;commodity currencyquot; exchange rates have remarkably robust power in predicting global commodity prices, both in-sample and out-of-sample, and against a variety of alternative benchmarks. This result is of particular interest to policymakers, given the lack of deep forward...

Prior to elections, governments (at all levels) frequently undertake a consumption binge. Taxes are cut, transfers are raised, and government spending is distorted towards highly visible items. The quot;political business cyclequot; (better be thought of as quot;the political budget cyclequot;)...

This paper offers empirical evidence that real exchange rate volatility can have a significant impact on long-term rate of productivity growth, but the effect depends critically on a country%u2019s level of financial development. For countries with relatively low levels of financial development,...

We show that the when one takes into account the global equilibrium ramifications of an unwinding of the US current account deficit, currently estimated at 5.4% of GDP, the potential collapse of the dollar becomes considerably larger--more than 50% larger--than our previous estimates (Obstfeld...

This paper examines annual commodity price data from England and Holland over a span of seven centuries. Our data set incorporates transactions prices on 8 commodities: barley, butter, cheese, eggs, oats, peas, silver and wheat as well as pound/shilling nominal exchange rates going back, in some...

This paper demonstrates that quot;commodity currencyquot; exchange rates have remarkably robust power in predicting future global commodity prices, both in sample and out-of-sample. A critical element of our in-sample approach is to allow for structural breaks, endemic to empirical exchange rate...

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...

This paper offers empirical evidence that real exchange rate volatility can have a significant impact on the long-term rate of productivity growth, but the effect depends critically on a country's level of financial development. For countries with relatively low levels of financial development,...