Kirsten Wandschneider

Bio: Kirsten Wandschneider is an academic researcher from Occidental College. The author has contributed to research in topics: Monetary policy & Financial crisis. The author has an hindex of 11, co-authored 25 publications receiving 396 citations. Previous affiliations of Kirsten Wandschneider include University of Vienna & Middlebury College.

Shooting on a Moving Target: Explaining European Bank Rates during the Interwar Period

Abstract: This paper describes the monetary policy response of countries during the inter-war period. How did central banks react to the Great Depression? How did countries balance the externals demands of the gold standard with domestic policy pressures? What was the optimal level of international policy coordination? We use weekly data over the period 1925-1936 to estimate central bank rate reaction functions for a panel of 22 countries during the inter-war gold standard. The estimates suggest to us changing objectives for monetary policy. Countries moved away from the sole objective of convertibility and towards a more ‘modern’ monetary policy based on exchange rate stabilization, but not yet output stabilization or even modern price level targeting. Importantly, this move to exchange rate stabilization was accompanied by the formation of monetary policy blocs around pre-existing economic relations. Countries’ interwar policy choices offer lessons for countries remaining in or choosing to join the European Monetary Union today.

The Stability of the Interwar Gold Exchange Standard: Did Politics Matter?

Abstract: Economic historians have devoted enormous attention to the collapse of the interwar gold standard. This article proposes a discrete time duration model (using a panel data set of 24 countries for 1928–1936) to analyze how economic and political indicators affected a country's term on the gold standard. High per capita income, international creditor status, and prior hyperinflation increased the probability of continuation. In contrast, democratic regimes left early. Unemployment, sterling group membership, higher inflation, and the experience of banking crises reduced the time a country remained on the gold standard. This study also predicts sample countries' survival probabilities.

The Baring Crisis and the Brazilian Encilhamento, 1889–1891: An Early Example of Contagion Among Emerging Capital Markets

Abstract: This article assesses the role of international markets in the brazilian financial crisis of 1890/91 (the crash of the encilhamento). It looks for the impact of the argentine financial crisis in 1890 (the baring crisis) on brazilian access to capital markets. The history of bond yield fluctuations in london for brazilian and argentine debt, exchange rates, data on investment flows and archival and journalistic accounts reveal a close congruence between the argentine and brazilian crises. The effects of the argentine experience carried over to brazil because the open capital and money markets of the period easily transmitted crisis from one economy to another and because fundamental conditions in both economies rendered them similarly vulnerable to fluctuations in capital flows. The article raises this case as a precedent for the contagious financial crises that emerging markets faced at the end of the twentieth century.

The effect of political regimes and technology on economic growth

Abstract: Do political regimes have a significant effect on economic growth? This study builds on the new neoclassical growth model to identify economic determinants of growth, and explicitly tests for the influence of political variables on economic performance for the 1990s. The results suggest that democracies and bureaucracies significantly outperform autocracies. Economic growth is also promoted by increased protection of property rights, and higher investment in education. Moreover, technology has become a requirement for efficient production, and hence, is crucial in promoting growth. Countries can therefore increase the level of economic growth by increasing the levels of education and technology in the economy, and establishing codified laws to foster property rights.

Capital Controls and Recovery from the Financial Crisis of the 1930s

Abstract: We examine the first widespread use of capital controls in response to a global or regional financial crisis. In particular, we analyze whether capital controls mitigated capital flight in the 1930s and assess their causal effects on macroeconomic recovery from the Great Depression. We find evidence that they stemmed gold outflows in the year following their imposition; however, time-shifted, difference-in-differences (DD) estimates of industrial production, prices, and exports suggest that exchange controls did not accelerate macroeconomic recovery relative to countries that went off gold and floated. Countries imposing capital controls also appear to perform similar to the gold bloc countries once the latter group of countries finally abandoned gold. Time series analysis suggests that countries imposing capital controls refrained from fully utilizing their newly acquired monetary policy autonomy.

The Economic Effects of Constitutions

Abstract: The Economic Effects of Constitutions. By Torsten Persson and Guido Tabellini. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003. 320p. $35.00.Torsten Persson and Guido Tabellini have produced the most ambitious study yet that attempts to identify and estimate the effects of constitutional design on economic outcomes. They draw on data from more than 80 countries and control for demographic, historical, regional, and economic characteristics. The purpose is to determine whether the shape of political institutions has measurable impact on economic policies (e.g., fiscal balance, social welfare spending), on government performance (e.g., corruption indices, protection of property rights), and on direct measures of economic performance (e.g., productivity of capital and labor). The political institutions that draw the most attention are constitutional regime type and the method of electing legislators.

국제정치이론 = Theory of international politics

Abstract: Therefore, the seeker after the truth is not one who studies the writings of the ancients and, following his natural disposition, puts his trust in them, but rather the one who suspects his faith in them and questions what he gathers from them, the one who submits to argument and demonstration, and not to the sayings of a human being whose nature is fraught with all kinds of imperfection and de‹ciency. Thus the duty of the man who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself the enemy of all that he reads, and, applying his mind to the core and margins of its content, attack it from every side. He should also suspect himself as he performs his critical examination of it, so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency. (Ibn al-Haytham)1

The Crisis in the Foreign Exchange Market

Abstract: The financial crisis of 2007-2008 had major implications for the foreign exchange market. We review events and implications for exchange rates, volatility, returns to currency investing, and transaction costs. This “blow-by-blow” narrative is intended to be a resource for researchers seeking a comprehensive review of the “what, why and when” of the financial crisis in terms of foreign exchange market dynamics. An implementable financial stress index (FSI) is created and then used to illustrate the dramatic nature of the current crisis compared to earlier crises. We also examine how the global FSI might have been used to condition the exposure to the carry trade (long high interest rate currencies, short low interest rate currencies) and we show that such an index has potential value in protecting a portfolio against loss during periods of stress, although this result is subject to the important caveats of controlling for transaction costs and timely recognition of the change in regime.