global imbalances

The Monetary Economics Of Sovereign Government Rating

4 May 2012

If a government (outside monetary unions) can make a draft at the central bank, why do rating agencies rate governments’ creditworthiness? In this post, I will attempt to describe the dynamics of defaults and restructurings by going through some monetary economics of open economies. Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff wrote a book in 2009 titled This [...]

READ MORE »

Nice Charts From The Bank Of England

1 December 2011

The Bank of England released the semiannual Financial Stability Report, December 2011 today. Complete book here. These reports have a lot of information, in addition to being well-written, well-formatted and colourful. The following graph shows how international banks’ funding from US Money Market Mutual Funds changed during the year. It also plots the Net International Investment [...]

READ MORE »

Charts From OECD’s Economic Outlook

29 November 2011

The OECD released its Economic Outlook recently. The preview is available here but download is for subscribers. Else if you are an FT subscriber, you can get it from FT Alphaville’s Long Room. A few interesting charts (at least for me): (click to enlarge) Most Economists (except a few good ones), following the work of [...]

READ MORE »

The Globalization Paradox

27 August 2011

I am reading Dani Rodrik’s The Globalization Paradox and borrowed the title for this post. I am curious as to what Barry Eichengreen has to say in his talk at the Federal Reserve’s annual forum at Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He is the author of the book Exorbitant Privilege: The Rise And Fall Of The Dollar And The [...]

READ MORE »