The crisis and other agenda

So I'm interested in doing an analysis of the impact of previous financial crises on commercial flows around the world. It would be interesting to see if the channels of transmission have changed as much as I think they have.

I suspect that I will find that the rise of leveraged institutions such as MNCs has made contagion a much bigger monster that is harder for goverments to control. In the past it was probably more true that government policy that impacted FX rates and capital flows could do a great deal, but today this is less likely to work.

I'm also working on a product-level view of FX competitiveness, whereby I try to isolate the changes in competitiveness that occur from FX variations according to competitors for a third market. If that isn't clear, think of Brazil competing for the Chinese market against other Asian economies. How does the marketshare for each product (at 6 digits) and FX changes affect competitiveness for the companies involved.

I also have a long list of thoughts. Now to find time to get them into paper.