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Recent sanctions on the use of Russia’s international reserve assets seem likely to reduce the appeal of US dollar reserves as a ?shock absorber? for international payments. But international reserves are also a means to reassure foreign investors that problematic countries will not confiscate their investments. The collateral motive for holding dollar reserves has been enhanced by the demonstration that the United States is willing and able to sanction misbehavior. Geopolitically risky countries now more than ever need to reassure foreign investors that their investments are safe from expropriation. We conclude that recent events will strengthen the role of the dollar as the key international reserve currency.

The economic emergence of a fixed exchange rate periphery in Asia has re‐established the United States as the centre country in the Bretton Woods international monetary system. We argue that the normal evolution of the international monetary system involves the emergence of a periphery for which the development strategy is export‐led growth supported by undervalued exchange rates, capital controls and official capital outflows in the form of accumulation of reserve asset claims on the centre country. The success of this strategy in fostering economic growth allows the periphery to graduate to the centre. Financial liberalization, in turn, requires floating exchange rates among the centre countries. But there is a line of countries waiting to follow the Europe of the 1950s/60s and Asia today, sufficient to keep the system intact for the foreseeable future. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This volume, edited by David Folkerts-Landau and Marcel Cassard, consists of papers presented at a conference held in Hong Kong SAR that was hosted by the IMF and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. It focuses on a wide range of issues confronting policymakers in managing their sovereign assets and liabilities in a world of mobile capital and integrated capital markets. Topics include public debt management strategy, central bank reserves management, technical and quantitive aspects of risk management, and credit costs and borrowing capacity in optimizing debt management. The papers draw on experiences of policymakers and private sector participants actively involved in formulating and implementing debt and reserves policy.

This volume, edited by David Folkerts-Landau and Marcel Cassard, consists of papers presented at a conference held in Hong Kong SAR that was hosted by the IMF and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. It focuses on a wide range of issues confronting policymakers in managing their sovereign assets and liabilities in a world of mobile capital and integrated capital markets. Topics include public debt management strategy, central bank reserves management, technical and quantitive aspects of risk management, and credit costs and borrowing capacity in optimizing debt management. The papers draw on experiences of policymakers and private sector participants actively involved in formulating and implementing debt and reserves policy.

In an environment of sizable and volatile capital flows and integrated international capital markets, large and unhedged net external sovereign liabilities expose countries to swings in international asset prices and to potential speculative currency attacks. The paper argues that an essential step in reducing emerging market vulnerability to such external shocks is to reform the institutional arrangements governing asset and liability management policies, so as to promote a transparent, publicly accountable, and professional incentive structure.

Intro -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Management of Sovereign Assets and Liabilities -- 3 Debt and Asset Management and Financial Crises: Sellers Beware -- Comments -- 4 Foreign Currency Liabilities in Debt Management -- Comments by Gregory Makoff -- 5 Sovereign Liability Management: An Irish Perspective -- 6 Management of Risks in Foreign Currency Funding and Debt Management -- 7 Autonomous Sovereign Debt Management Experience -- 8 Public Debt Management Strategy: Belgium's Experience -- 9 Central Bank Reserves Management -- 10 Trends in Central Bank Reserves Management -- 11 Reserves Management Operations in Australia -- 12 Foreign Borrowing by the Kingdom of Denmark -- 13 Credit Costs and Borrowing Capacity in Debt Optimization -- 14 Risk Management Process for Central Banks -- 15 Technical and Quantitative Aspects of Risk Management -- Notes on Contributors.

The paper focuses on the role of offshore centers and markets in international finance during the past two decades and the migration of financial activity from the major financial centers to these offshore markets. The paper examines the prospects of offshore centers in view of the convergence of fiscal and regulatory regimes of offshore and domestic financial centers in recent years, the greater involvement of banks in derivative finance at the expense of the traditional offshore interbank markets, and the increased concentration of financial activity in the major financial centers.

What are the effects of taxation on individual/entrepreneurs' risk-taking behavior? This paper re-examines this old question in a continuous time life-cycle model. We demonstrate that the stream of uncertain income from human capital has systematic effects on demand for the risky physical capital asset. If labor supply is inelastic and real wages are known with certainty, then a labor income tax will reduce holdings of the risky physical asset. However, if there are random fluctuations in labor income, then the effect depends on the nature of interaction between wage risk and investment income risk. A labor income tax may actually raise demand for the risky capital asset if human capital risk and physical capital risk are positively correlated. The idiosyncratic risk and nontradability of human capital also have implications for optimal taxation. When the insurance and disincentive effects are jointly taken into account, a Pareto efficient tax structure implies a strictly positive tax rate.