For more than half a century, the US dollar has been not just America's currency but the
world's. It is used globally by importers, exporters, investors, governments and central banks …

In the past, industrial countries have tended to pursue countercyclical or, at worst, acyclical
fiscal policy. In sharp contrast, emerging and developing countries have followed procyclical …

This paper compares the importance of precautionary and mercantilist motives in the
hoarding of international reserves by developing countries. Overall, empirical results support …

The rapid growth of international reserves, a development concentrated in the emerging
markets, remains a puzzle. In this paper, we suggest that a model based on financial stability …

We present a model of the optimal level of international reserves for a small open economy
seeking insurance against sudden stops in capital flows. We derive a formula for the optimal …

The recent crisis has underlined the importance of sound bank liquidity management. In
response, regulators are devising new liquidity standards with the aim of making the …

We show that capital flows to emerging market economies create externalities that differ by
an order of magnitude depending on the state-contingent payoff profile of the flows. Those …

By Maurice Obstfeld, Jay C. Shambaugh, and Alan M. Taylor* often, however, the
percentage reserve losses are smaller (so far) and start later (for example, after the …

The sizeable hoarding of international reserves by several East Asian countries has been
frequently attributed to a modern version of monetary mercantilism–hoarding international …

The worldwide rise of sovereign wealth funds is emblematic of the ongoing transformation of
nation-state economic prospects. Sovereign Wealth Funds maps the global footprints of …