This paper analyses which economic and political factors affect the chance that a country receives IMF credit or signs an agreement with the Fund. We use a panel model for 128 countries over the period 1972-1998. Our results, based on Extreme Bounds Analysis, suggest that it are mostly economic...

It is often argued that deregulation of international transactions and its effects on the globalization of financial markets is behind the decline in the attractiveness of fixed exchange rate regimes. We argue that, instead, much of the recently observed decrease in the level of capital controls...

We test whether, in addition to economic conditions, IMF credit is influenced by political factors. On the basis of a panel model for 128 countries over the period 1972-1998, we find that debt service scaled to exports, international reserve holdings scaled to imports and economic growth, as...

We test a simple model of exchange rate regime choice with data for 65 non-OECD countries covering the period 1980-94.We find that the variance of output at home and in potential target c ountries as well as the correlation between home and foreign real activity are powerful and robust...

Using an improved definition and indicator of growth accelerations, we examine whether political regimes, regime changes, and economic reform are related to growth accelerations. Our results show that economic growth accelerations are preceded by economic reforms. Furthermore, we find that...

This paper critically reviews the debate on CRAs and, in the light thereof, analyses the European regulatory approach to CRAs, thereby combining insights from economics and law. We first provide some basic background on the function of CRAs. Thereafter, we focus on the two main tasks for which...

This paper examines which economic, fiscal, external, financial, and institutional characteristics of countries affect the likelihood that they adopt inflation targeting as their monetary policy strategy. We estimate a panel binary response transition model for 60 countries and two subsamples...

The impact of the global financial crisis varies across countries. We examine whether cross-country differences in output loss and speed of recovery are affected by differences in labor market flexibility. By employing cross-country regressions and including control variables like trade and...