Finance: Research, Policy and Anecdotes

I am off to a week-long trip – first Washington DC where I will participate in the second meeting of the Taskforce on Basel III in Emerging and Developing Markets. While in the first part of this project we discussed challenges in the Basel III adoption and implementation for emerging and developing economies, this time we will discuss policy recommendations.  A report, however, won’t be ready until early next year.  

On Thursday/Friday then, I will be at the  68th Economic Policy panel at the Austrian National Bank in Vienna (where excellent research will be combined with delicious coffee!).  A very interesting set of papers awaits us, including two papers on the Gig economy, one of them on Uber drivers in London.  Also, Barry Eichengreen et al. on Mercury vs. Mars – what explains which currency countries hold their foreign exchange reserves in – economic or political reasons; with some interesting policy implications for both the US dollar and the Euro.  Atish Ghosh et al. discuss how policy makers have or have not adopted capital account restrictions in line with the reputation of such policies.  I will try to tweet from the panel meeting.

Overview