The pattern of international trade adjustment is affected by the continuing international role of the dollar and related evidence on exchange rate pass-through to prices. This paper argues that a depreciation of the dollar would have asymmetric effects on flows between the United States and its...

This paper analyzes the impact of exchange rate fluctuations when they are only partially passed through to consumer prices. We show that an exchange rate depreciation does not necessarily have a beggar-thy-neighbor effect and may in fact have an opposite, or beggar-thyself, effect. The...

Switzerland’s international investment position shows a puzzling feature since 1999: Large and persistent current account surpluses have failed to boost the value of Swiss foreign assets. In this paper, we link this pattern to the substantial increase in the leveraging of Switzerland’s...

Sustained large U.S. current account deficits have led some economists and policymakers to worry that future current account adjustment could occur through a sudden and disruptive depreciation of the dollar and a sharp drop in U.S. consumption. Two factors that, to date, have cast doubt on such...

The paper studies the differential impact of exchange rate fluctuations on households in a country. I extend earlier research by relaxing the assumption of complete international sectoral specialization. My setup allows for the presence of several different sectors in a given country, each...

This paper evaluates the consequences of the integration of international asset markets when goods markets are characterized by price rigidities. Using an open economy general equilibrium model with volatility in the money markets, we show that such an integration is not universally beneficial....

A growing body of research emphasizes the direct impact of exchange rate movements on the value of U.S. foreign assets. Because a substantial amount of U.S. assets are denominated in foreign currencies, a depreciation of the dollar leads to large capital gains. First, we present a detailed...

The paper explores the optimal monetary policy reaction to productivity shocks in an open economy. Whereas earlier studies assume that countries specialize in producing particular goods, I enrich the analysis by allowing for incomplete specialization. I confirm the finding of Obstfeld and Rogoff...

The U.S. dollar plays a key role in international trade invoicing along two complementary dimensions. First, most U.S. exports and imports are invoiced in dollars; second, trade flows that do not involve the United States are often invoiced in dollars, a fact that has received relatively little...

Recent crises have seen very large spikes in asset price risk without dramatic shiftsin fundamentals. We propose an explanation for these risk panics based on selffullling shifts in risk made possible by a negative link between the current assetprice and risk about the future asset price. This...