A number of recent studies have concluded that velocity for the United States for the past century displays the characteristics of a random walk without drift. In this study, we confirm this result for four other countries for which we have over a century of data -- Canada, the United Kingdom,...

On the seventieth birthday of the Bank of Canada, we evaluate the Bank's contribution to monetary policy in an international context. We focus on: the reasons for the establishment of the central bank in 1935, its unique record of floating in a sea of fixed currencies under Bretton Woods; its...

Recent events in Asia and other parts of the globe have prompted calls from many quarters for international rescue of the monetary or fiscal authorities of distressed countries. We contrast the experience before 1973 of rescues of monetary authorities of advanced countries temporarily short of...

In this paper we compare various characteristics of the cross-country transmission of shocks in the financial markets of both advanced and emerging countries during two periods of globalization -- the pre-World War I classical gold standard era, 1880-1914, and the post-Bretton Woods era,...

In January 1929 the Canadian government suspended gold exports and began a floating exchange rate regime that endured until the onset of World War 11. In sharp contrast with the experience of other countries which left the gold standard, deflation and declining economic activity continued in...

World War I dramatically altered the world's financial landscape. Most countries left the gold standard, and New York replaced London as the major lender in world capital markets. This paper discusses how the gold exchange standard was reconstructed in the 1920s. We show that the U.S. capital...

We highlight the elements of the operation of the U.S. Exchange Stabilization Fund that Harry Dexter White, who directed the Treasury's division of monetary research, transferred to his plan for the operation of the International Monetary Fund. The elements included the principle that all...

The creation of EMU and the ECB has triggered a discussion of the future of EMU. Independent observers have pointed to a number of shortcomings or hazard areas' in the construction of EMU, such as the absence of a central lender of last resort function for EMU, the lack of a central authority...

The Napoleonic Wars offer an experiment unique in the history of wartime finance. While Britain was forced off the gold standard and endured a sustained inflation, France remained on a bimetallic standard for the war's duration. For wars of comparable length and intensity in the nineteenth and...

In this paper we describe what the IMF is and what it does. We consider its origins as the guardian of the Bretton Woods adjustable peg exchange rate system and financier of temporary current account deficits for advanced countries, to its present primary roles as development financier and...