The Chinn-Ito index revised and updated to 2012 is now available here.
Category Archives: international
The National Savings Identity, Crowding-Out, and Apocalypse Predicted
Consider this prognostication from 2011:
Americans face the most predictable economic crisis in this nation’s history. Absent reform, the panic ahead is no longer a question of if, but rather when. A deterioration of confidence by investors in government’s ability to pay its bills will drive interest rates up, increasing borrowing costs for government, small businesses and families alike. A vicious cycle of debt will compound upon itself; the available exit options once the crisis hits will be limited; and all will involve pain. (p.59)
China’s financial risk
Three years ago I called attention to the NYU Stern Volatility Laboratory. Since then it’s grown into an even more amazing resource, giving anyone access to constantly updated information about financial conditions in dozens of countries around the globe. Of particular interest are recent changes in their measure of the systemic risk posed by financial institutions.
Russia Raises the Policy Rate
From BBC:
Russia’s central bank has unexpectedly raised its key bank interest rate over concerns about inflation and “geopolitical tension”.
Forward Premia and the Carry Trade
I was at the NBER Summer Institute’s meeting of the International Finance and Macro group where (in addition to finally meeting Jim Hamilton) I had the opportunity to hear two papers on a topic near and dear to me — namely the relationship between the forward premium (the gap between the forward and spot rate, or equivalently in the absence of political risk, the interest differential) and the carry trade. (For discussion of related papers at last year’s IFM, see this post).
Russia Stalls
From Reuters today:
Russia’s economy is stagnating as data showed on Wednesday that capital worth $75 billion has left the country so far this year following sanctions on Moscow over its involvement in Ukraine.
What to Do about the “Crazy Euro”?
From today’s FT:
International Trade and Finance…and Policy
I’ve just returned from two highly stimulating conferences in Beijing. The first was a Columbia-Tsinghua conference on “Capital Flows and International Financial Systems”, organized by Jiandong Ju and Shang-Jin Wei, and the second a NBER-China Center for Economic Research conference on “China and the World Economy”, organized by Yang Yao, Shang-Jin Wei, and Chong-En Bai.
Negative interest rates
The European Central Bank announced on Thursday that it is moving interest rates into negative territory, charging banks for maintaining deposits with the ECB rather than paying the banks positive interest. The hope is that lower (now even negative) interest rates may provide some stimulus to the European economy which might help bring European inflation closer to the ECB’s 2% target. Here I offer a few thoughts on this move.
Guest Contribution: “Asia-Pacific Regional Integration”
Economic Effects and Implications for the Global Trading System
Today we are fortunate to have a guest contribution written by Peter A. Petri (Brandeis University) and Michael G. Plummer (The Johns Hopkins University, SAIS).
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