It is still insufficiently realised, even now, that the US and therefore the rest of the world may be on the brink of a severe and intractable recession. As recently as September 2000, it was commonly held that the US business cycle had been abolished for ever, while the “consensus” forecast...

The strategic outlook of the U.S. can be assessed by analyzing the balance sheets of its main sectors, which are mutually linked by a coherent system of accounting. The expansion of the period 1992-2000 was greeted by a wave of complacency in the United States and it was thought that it could...

This article compares the direct regulation of hedge funds in the U.S. prior to the Dodd-Frank Act with the direct regulatory measures to address potential systemic risks of hedge funds ensued in its aftermaths. The direct regulation involves regulatory measures focusing immediately on the...

The author compares the U.S. with other G-10 countries regarding key aspects of permissible banking activities. One conclusion is that banks in the U.S. face greater restrictions, and possibly more intensive supervisory oversight, than do banks in most other G-10 countries. Second, the majority...

This paper revisits Canada's pioneering experience with floating exchange rate over the period 19501962. It examines whether the floating rate was the best option for Canada in the 1950s by developing and estimating a New Keynesian small open economy model of the Canadian economy. The model is...

Money, in this paper, is defined as a power relationship of a specific kind, a stratified social debt relationship, measured in a unit of account determined by some authority. A brief historical examination reveals its evolving nature in the process of social provisioning. Money not only...

"A century of macroeconomic and monetary thought at the National Bank of Belgium" traces the history of economic research at the National Bank of Belgium, from the early decades of the 20th century to its present functioning in the Eurosystem. The study also goes into the major economic policy...

This note reviews the recent experience of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority's foreign exchange market operations and illustrates why such operations are a passive and mechanical process under the currency board arrangement. This note also discusses whether Hong Kong is well prepared for capital...