Financial Globalization and Exchange Rates

The founders of the Bretton Woods System sixty years ago were primarily concerned with orderly exchange rateadjustment in a world economy that was characterized by widespread restrictions on international capitalmobility. In contrast, the rapid pace of financial globalization during recent years poses new challenges for theinternational monetary system. In particular, large gross cross-holdings of foreign assets and liabilities meansthat the valuation channel of exchange rate adjustment has grown in importance, relative to the traditional tradebalance channel. Accordingly, this paper empirically explores some of the inter-connections between financialglobalization and exchange rate adjustment and discusses the policy implications.