This paper first documents the foreign currency exposures of Switzerland in the 2002-2012 period. We find that the large scale of the Swiss international balance sheet means that movements in the Swiss Franc generate large cross-border valuation effects. Second, we examine the Swiss Franc...

This paper documents industrial output growth around the poor periphery (Latin America, the European periphery, the Middle East and North Africa, Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa) between 1870 and 2007. We provide answers to the following questions: When and where did rapid industrial growth begin...