This paper examines the impact of the depreciation of the Australian dollar on the expenditure of households with foreign-born members in Australia.

Central banks are turning their attention toward central bank digital currency (CBDC) to replace coins and bills and to provide other types of services through digital technology. This paper explores the forces that will affect the implementation of a CBDC.

This briefing argues that there is a solid use case for central bank digital currency (CBDC) that justifies the intense interest across multiple jurisdictions. At the same time, establishing the architecture, infrastructure and rules for access to CBDC will entail design choices that are not...

This report examines the US dollar’s global role and its implications for Australia. The report looks at the dollar’s global pre-eminence and how this has increased over time. It also examines the role of the US dollar as a “reserve asset”, arguing that this reserve...

This paper argues that China’s economic and trade 'free ride' is well and truly over, and that it is also encountering pushback from regional countries, and especially so by the United States.

This inquiry will have a particular focus on the purchase of foreign cash, and the transfer or remittance of money overseas. It will also consider other ways that consumers and small businesses perform foreign currency transactions, such as via credit, debit or pre-paid travel cards.

We propose a method for global equity fund performance evaluation that extends existing research by addressing both equity and currency factor exposures. Returns in excess of the risk-free rate are decomposed into contributions arising from the market, exposure to six equity and three currency ‘style...

We explore the conditions under which a financial asset emerges as a global store of value and can co-exist with a pre-existing (incumbent) store of value. In our model the acceptability of an asset as a global store is driven by the issuing region’s financial...

China has approached the internationalisation of the Renminbi (RMB) by taking cautious but deliberate steps towards a more liberalised economy. The intent to internationalise the currency is clearly expressed in China’s five year plan and further endorsed by the 18th Plenum in 2013. However the...

This thesis intends to investigate the asymmetric effects of monetary policy on regional prices within Fiji. The monetary policy shocks are generated by removing any systemic response to future economic conditions from the actual policy rate that is set by the Reserve Bank of Fiji...

This paper investigates an appropriate choice of anchor currency for a proposed Melanesian currency union under various hypothetical currency union arrangements. Drawing from the optimal currency area (OCA) theory and related extensions, the analysis focuses on the effects of a currency union on exchange rate...

On-going debate of a Pacific Islands currency union has rekindled the argument on whether Pacific Island Countries (PICs) demonstrate symmetric behavior in their business cycles as a precondition for a union according to the OCA theory. Unfortunately for the PICs, there are no empirical studies...

Time series analyses generally rely on having a relatively high frequency of consistent and reliable data to work with. However for many of the South Pacific Island Nations (SPINS), data on major macroeconomic series, like GDP, are typically available only annually from the early 1980s...

The impact of aid inflows on relative prices and output is ambiguous. Aid inflows that increase domestic expenditure are likely to cause real exchange rate appreciation, ceteris paribus. However, if this expenditure raises the capital stock in the traded goods sector, then output in this...

This paper re-kindles the debate on the feasibility of a Pacific Islands currency union in view of the recent expansion and consolidation of regional strategies and agreements such as the 'Pacific Plan' and the Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations Plus. These initiatives, including past...

This thesis evaluates the feasibility of a Pacific Islands currency union involving six Pacific Island countries (PICs) comprising Fiji, Papua New Guinea (PNG), Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu, and their industrialised neighbours, Australia and New Zealand. PICs are vulnerable to internal and external shocks...