The newest version of the Chinn-Ito financial openness index (earlier discussed here), extending up to 2006, has just been posted. Here’s the series for Argentina and for Venezuela.
Category Archives: international
Prospects for Federal Interest Payments to the Rest-of-the-World
I was struck at how Federal government interest payments to the rest of the world have risen even as interest rates have fallen.
The G-7 Communique and the Dollar
Was this the new (reverse) “Plaza Accord”? From Bloomberg:
Revisions: The Global Outlook in the WEO
The IMF released the World Economic Outlook‘s forecasts yesterday. There’s been plenty of coverage, so I won’t recap the main points, but rather focus in on some interesting aspects:
- The rapidity of the downshifting of estimates since January.
- Commodity price prospects and the LDCs.
IMF World Economic Outlook Analytic Chapters Released
Several chapters of the IMF’s semi-annual research document are now available online, in advance of the IMF-Bank meetings.
The Yuan on the Move: An Update
And a bit on the IMF’s revised forecast for the US.
From Reuters, “U.S.’s Paulson praises China on currency progress”:
Recoupling, Monetary Policy Divergence, and the Dollar
At the risk of losing my audience by skipping over the the record housing price decline, and an outsized drop in the consumer confidence index, I’m going to focus on what seems like old news (but is being reflected in current news on the dollar), namely the OECD reduction in growth forecasts for the G-7 economies. The euro area economy is slated to do better than the US economy in 2008H1, but that’s not saying much.
De-Globalization? Musing about Oil Prices and Trade Costs
This post recaps a post from over a year and a half ago, in light of surging oil prices. Most attention is rightly focused on the supply side effects of the increase in the real price of oil. However, another facet is the impact on transportation costs, and hence the tradability of goods across borders.
Two Questions: What Do Slowing Imports Mean? And Is There a J-Curve?
As the dollar continues to plumb new depths [0], and the economic slowdown continues, I want to discuss two questions about the trade balance that occur to me.
Musings on the Dollar: PPP and Thresholds
As the dollar hits a new low against the euro [0], some thoughts on what arguments make sense, given our knowledge of the statistical properties of real exchange rates.