Subsequent to the economic difficulties of the 1980s, many Latin American governments reluctantly began to introduce market-oriented reform measures. In many cases, the new measures were adopted only as a means of participating in debt-relief programs such as the Brady Initiative. In no case,...

A theoretical model of the inflationary process in Nigeria is developed using monetary aggregates, the exchange rate, and the implicit cost of holding idle cash balances. Parameter estimation is accomplished using quarterly data for 1970:1 through 1993:4 and a nonlinear ARMAX procedure....

An overview of modeling and forecasting methodologies for price trends and other macroeconomic variables in Latin America is provided. Five approaches are reviewed within the time series and econometric traditions from which they are selected. Each method is reviewed within the context of data...

Florida is one of the most internationally oriented regional economies in North America. During the 1990s, trade and investment flows in Florida changed substantially. This was partly due to new international trade agreements and partly due to improved economic performances observed in major...

El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico jointly form one of the largest border economies in the world. They have grown substantially in recent years and face a number of policy challenges. Topics reviewed include population, employment, incomes, retail trade, international commuting...

While theoretical models consistently predict that government spending shocks should lead to appreciation of the domestic currency, empirical studies have been stubbornly finding depreciation. Using daily data on U.S. defense spending (announced and actual payments), we document that the dollar...

Following through on pledges made during his election campaign, President Bush proposed and Congress passed a substantial tax cut in 2001, the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act (EGTRRA). Much has been written about the size of the tax cut, its impact on the federal budget, its...

This paper reviews the state of discretionary fiscal policy. Among its findings are: (1) In recent years, U.S. discretionary fiscal policy appears to have become more active in response to both cyclical conditions and a simple measure of budget balance. (2) Considerable uncertainty remains about...

We construct a computational dynamic stochastic overlapping generations general equilibrium model with uncertain lifetimes and explore the impact of policy stickiness (specifically, a major reform will preclude future reforms for a generation) on optimal long-run fiscal policy. Under such...

In this paper, we estimate government purchase multipliers for a large number of OECD countries, allowing these multipliers to vary smoothly according to the state of the economy and using real-time forecast data to purge policy innovations of their predictable components. We adapt our previous...