The CFA Franc Zone, with 14 member countries in West and Central Africa, is now entering a phase of restructuring. This is clearly indicated by the debates now occurring in the EC, within the French government, in international organizations such as the World Bank and IMF, and in the CFA Franc...

This paper studies the implications of the imperfect credibility of an exchange rate target zone on the term structure of forward premia. The relationship between spot and forward exchange rates of different maturities reflects the possibility of repeated realignments of the exchange rate band....

This paper shows that the quality of banks within each country is one of the important factors that can account for the fact that developing economies tend to suffer more severe output contractions in the wake of a currency crisis than more mature economies. In particular, countries with a...

We analyse the empirical effects of credit easing and quantitative easing on inflation expectations and exchange rates. Both monetary policy strategies are summarised in measures for composition and size of the central bank balance sheet and included in a VAR model. The empirical results show...

Recent theories of crisis put lending booms at the root of financial collapses. Yet lending booms may be a natural consequence of economic development and fluctuations. So are lending booms dangerous? In this paper, we investigate empirically this question using a broad sample of lending boom...