Recurrent instability has characterized the global financial system since the 1980s, eventually leading to the current global financial crisis. This instability and the resultant disruptions - sovereign debt defaults, exchange rate misalignments, financial market illiquidity and asset price...

During recent years, central banks have increased the levels of their international reserves at an unprecedented pace. In this paper, we introduce new country-specific reserve data and examine determinants of the composition of international reserves. Using a dataset of 36 countries (and the...