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on International Finance |
| By: | Joshua Aizenman; Jamel Saadaoui; Gazi Salah Uddin; Naoki Yago |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the role of foreign exchange and gold reserves in mitigating the US monetary policy spillovers to exchange rates at times of geopolitical fragmentation and de-dollarization. US dollar reserves mitigate depreciation driven by US monetary tightening, while non-dollar reserves do not. Gold reserves are also associated with smaller exchange-rate responses, though less strongly than dollar reserves, suggesting novel complementarity between dollar and gold reserves. Moreover, the estimated effects of dollar and gold reserves are concentrated in countries without swap and repo lines. These findings are consistent with recent large-scale purchases and sales of gold reserves by emerging economies amid sanctions-related restrictions and geopolitical concerns about access to dollar liquidity. Our results suggest that not only the aggregate volume but also the composition of foreign exchange and gold reserves and access to dollar liquidity facilities are empirically relevant for exchange-rate responses to US monetary shocks. Finally, we exploit cross-country heterogeneity and show that countries with large dollar exposure exhibit smaller exchange-rate responses when dollar and gold reserve holdings are larger. |
| JEL: | E52 F31 F32 F41 |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35337 |
| By: | Arvai, Kai; Coimbra, Nuno; Pinchetti, Marco |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the determinants of international investors' portfolio choices between gold and sovereign bonds in an environment shaped by economic and geopolitical shocks. We develop an endogenous portfolio choice model where reserve safety has a political dimension — sovereign bonds issued by the dominant reserve country are more liquid but exposed to the issuer's sanctions authority, while gold offers sanctions protection at the cost of lower liquidity. Our model implies that US convenience yields fall during periods of high sanction risk, as safe-asset demand fragments along geopolitical lines. Empirically, periods of elevated geopolitical risk coincide with higher gold prices and 10-year Treasury yields. In such periods, the average composition of official reserves shifts toward gold, with countries less aligned with the US in UN voting patterns increasing their holdings by a greater extent. |
| Keywords: | Dominant currency; Safe assets; Sanctions; Gold |
| JEL: | E42 F02 F33 N10 |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:21575 |
| By: | Horn, Sebastian; Reinhart, Carmen M.; Trebesch, Christoph |
| Abstract: | States are major international financiers, but their role is poorly understood. We study state-driven cross-border lending over two centuries using a new database covering 1.2 million official loans and grants by 134 governments and 70 multilateral institutions since 1790. We document a dual, state-contingent structure of international credit. In normal times, private creditors dominate cross-border lending. In adverse states of the world, such as wars and financial crises, official creditors step in, at times on a massive scale. These official flows are driven by great powers, are highly subsidized, and are largely absent from canonical models in international macroeconomics. |
| Keywords: | Sovereign debt, Capital flows, Financial crises, Bailouts, War finance, Disaster risk |
| JEL: | E42 F33 F34 F35 F36 G01 G20 N1 N2 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifwkwp:341632 |
| By: | Zhengyang Jiang; Arvind Krishnamurthy; Hanno Lustig; Robert J. Richmond |
| Abstract: | We quantify the impact of the loss of reserve currency status in goods and asset markets. In goods markets, the loss of seigniorage (1% of GDP per annum) makes American households spend less, mostly on U.S. goods, leaving an excess supply of U.S. goods to be cleared by a real depreciation of the dollar. The larger the home bias and the lower the elasticity of substitution between home and foreign goods, the larger the required depreciation. Standard parameters imply an 8.8% real depreciation of the dollar. In asset markets, about 50% of GDP in dollar bonds must be reabsorbed by home investors, raising the U.S. real interest rate. Standard parameters imply a 90 basis points rise, leading to an aggregate wealth loss of roughly one year of U.S. GDP. |
| JEL: | F0 |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35328 |
| By: | Bindseil, Ulrich; Daskalova, Svetla; Senner, Richard |
| Abstract: | We analyse the portfolio-reallocation incentives faced by NIIP-surplus economies under cross-border seizure risk. Assets, such as gold, can be physically imported and held domestically in contrast to financial claims on other jurisdictions. Gold purchases not only reduce the NIIP but can also drive steep increases in gold prices. We review the history of gold as an international settlement asset, the evolution of financial sanctions, and the global distribution of NIIP and gold holdings. We calibrate a simple model to recent gold mining cost curves and show that (assuming a current account balance of zero) closing one trillion dollars of NIIP per year through newly mined gold could push prices above USD 8, 500 per ounce, while a ten-trillion-dollar target could be consistent with USD 67, 000 per ounce. In an extended model, NIIP surplus countries face a trade-off between rapid NIIP reduction, with subsequent valuation losses, versus gradual adjustment, which tempers price impacts but lengthens the period of exposure to cross-border seizure risks. We also model the case of an elastic supply from mobilization of existing private holdings in the rest of the world via a simple portfolio re-allocation channel. |
| Keywords: | Gold, foreign reserves, net international investment position |
| JEL: | E3 E5 G1 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:safewp:341430 |
| By: | Luis Rodrigo Asturias Schaub; Guglielmo Maria Caporale; Luis Alberiko Gil-Alana |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the long-memory properties of sovereign bond spreads in 17 Latin American countries as well as two regional aggregates using daily EMBI (Emerging Markets Bond Index) data from April 2013 to January 2026 (3, 163 observations per series). Parametric methods show that all 19 series are characterized by fractional integration with estimated orders ranging from 0.97 (Uruguay) to 1.22 (Honduras) for the log-transformed spreads. Nine series have confidence bounds above unity, indicating that shocks have permanent effects; under autocorrelated errors (as in the Bloomfield model), Uruguay is the only country whose series exhibits mean reversion (as the confidence bands for the fractional parameter are below unity). The results are robust to making different assumptions about the error terms (white noise or autocorrelation) and to allowing for non-linear deterministic trends. |
| Keywords: | long memory, fractional integration, EMBI (Emerging Markets Bond Index), sovereign spreads, Latin America |
| JEL: | C22 F34 G15 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12731 |
| By: | Samuel Drapeau; Peng Luo; Xuan Tao; Tan Wang |
| Abstract: | Partially convertible economies face a market-design problem: trade integration, cross-border investment, and domestic balance-sheet exposure increase the demand for currency hedging before full financial integration is complete. China adopted a distinctive architecture for this problem by fostering a deliverable offshore Renminbi market (CNH) alongside the segmented onshore market (CNY), rather than relying only on non-deliverable forwards. This creates two venues for closely related claims on the same currency. Spot prices are tightly linked, yet CNY and CNH forwards display a persistent and economically large discrepancy. We study that discrepancy in a joint equilibrium model for spot and forward trading with transaction costs and segmented supply. In the benchmark case with common constant supply and deterministic costs, spot parity implies a forward differential with the wrong sign relative to the data. Random offshore stress, modeled as a jump in trading costs, overturns this benchmark while preserving tight spot parity. The model yields a semi-explicit representation in the CNY/CNH application and a calibration of the observed forward discrepancy in terms of the market-implied likelihood and severity of offshore liquidity stress. |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2605.25392 |
| By: | Marie-Hélène Gagnon (Université Laval [Québec]); Céline Gimet (Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, AMSE, Marseille, France); Uros Herman (Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, AMSE, Marseille, France) |
| Abstract: | We study the effects of macroprudential policies on income and wealth inequality across 18 Eurozone countries over the period 2000–2024. We focus on the financially constrained Wealthy Hand-to-Mouth households for whom the regulation changes are likely to be consequential. We present insights from a stylised two-economy incomplete-markets model where the heterogeneity in household portfolio composition shapes the effects on inequalities of borrower-based regulation. Using panel regressions and local projections, we test empirically the model's predictions that macroprudential policies matter for inequalities and their effects differ depending on the concentration of housing or pension assets in the Wealthy Hand-to-Mouth households' illiquid portfolios. The empirical findings underscore that in housing dominant economies, the reduction of the LTV ratio improves wealth inequalities in the short term through a collateral-leverage mechanism, whereas it persistently widens wealth disparities in pension-dominant economies through credit exclusion effects. |
| Keywords: | Loan-to-value regulation; Macroprudential policy; Eurozone; Local projections; Wealthy hand-to-mouth; Heterogeneity; Portfolio; Wealth inequalities |
| JEL: | D31 E21 E44 G28 R21 |
| Date: | 2026–06–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aim:wpaimx:2617 |
| By: | Emanuele Brancati; Qingqing Cao; Raoul Minetti; Nicholas Jaehyun Yi |
| Abstract: | We study how the integration between the financial sector and the production structure influences business cycle transmission. In a dynamic economy where banks provide asset-based finance to supply chains, we find that integration along an extensive margin, in the form of firms' ability to borrow from banks specialized in different supply chain segments, amplifies negative banking shocks. In contrast, integration along an intensive margin, in the form of greater diffusion of bank factoring and invoice discounting, mitigates the transmission of banking shocks. A quantitative application to Italy reveals that the destabilizing effects of bank-supply chain integration can prevail when inter-firm commercial linkages are underdeveloped. The predictions are consistent with bank-firm matched data from Italy. |
| Keywords: | Banks, Financial integration, Production networks, Factoring |
| JEL: | E23 E32 E44 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ter:wpaper:00198 |
| By: | Raih, Yoan; Luo, Guiliu |
| Abstract: | As China seeks to internationalize the renminbi and EMDEs search for alternative sources of financing, Panda bonds have emerged as a growing funding option. This paper argues that while RMB borrowing can offer advantages over hard-currency debt, headline yields often understate the true cost once credit enhancement and currency risks are considered. Panda bonds have significant potential, but scaling the market will require further regulatory reforms, risk-sharing mechanisms, and stronger participation from multilateral and Chinese policy institutions. |
| Keywords: | Panda bonds; Renminbi (RMB) internationalization; Sovereign debt; Emerging and developing economies (EMDEs); External financing; Currency risk; Chinese bond market; Guarantees |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpm:notfdl:2606 |