NIMFE · New International Monetary and Financial Environment

The structure of the international monetary and financial system has first-order implications for capital flows, financial stability, the value of currencies and the way shocks propagate across countries. The world is changing rapidly: the share of the United States and Europe in international trade has declined, while the share of Asia has increased since the 2000s. International finance is still dominated by the US dollar, but China is emerging. There are wealth transfers due to the restructuring of commodity markets and the green energy transition. These constitute significant transformations of the international monetary and financial environment. This proposal aims to study interlinkages of countries to shed light on global cycles and transmission of shocks and policies of dominant currency powers over time. It has five tightly interconnected parts: (i) construct the trade, financial and commodity networks of countries to understand interdependencies and the role of main Central Banks, in particular the People’s Bank of China (ii) focus on the channels of international transmission of shocks to the real economy at the firm level using rich micro-data sets (iii) study the international finance network at the granular level and provide a brand new empirical and theoretical analysis of determinants of currency values (iv) uncover granular evidence on hedging strategies of economic actors facing those shocks using unexploited data sets (v) analyze changes in the structure of commodities international demand and supply networks (e.g. rare metals) using an original methodology based on textual analysis and track wealth transfers and their implications. These five complementary research streams will together elucidate the anatomy of the changing international financial and monetary environment and allow us to understand the origin, mechanism and consequences of the shifts in the balance of monetary and financial power in the world economy.