Tag Archives: international finance

I had an impromptu debate with Warren Mosler, the founder and still one of the leading figures of "Modern Monetary Theory" recently. We disagreed on the role of trade deficits, and this has led another MMT luminary, Bill Mitchell, to write two commentaries critiquing my position (see "Trade and external finance mysteries – Part 1" and "Trade and finance mysteries – Part 2". This is my partial reply to Mitchell—there are more issues that I want to take up when I have time to do so.......

I have been running into cross-market yield comparisons in the news flow in recent weeks. For example, the raw U.S. Treasury/German bund yield spread often comes up in valuation discussions.The simple rule of thumb is that one should never make such cross-currency yield comparisons; they only matter if the currency value is being pegged. Since I do not have a handy source for euro-denominated bond yields, I will use the Canada-U.S. comparison.... Bond Economics Why Cross-Currency Bond Yield...

Recently, a colleague emailed with the following set of questions: ‘a balance sheet approach to defending currencies. Do you know literature that explains in detail the globally interlocking balance sheets between central banks, commercial banks and what happens when a national government has to defend its currency? What is the role of national and foreign reserves and how do they travel these balance sheets in the process of trying to defend a currency? I came back to this question when...

Insightful post on international finance. Short.The Case for Concerted ActionChristine Lagarde On Germany’s Balance Of Payments V. Ramanan