Typical analyses of trends and cycles take as given some (one) observable economic variable in whose time path a researcher wishes to find trend and cycle movements. But individual sectors and regions in aggregate economies move neither perfectly with nor independently of each other -- why is it...

We use the method of indirect inference, using the bootstrap, to test the Smets and Wouters model of the EU against a VAR auxiliary equation describing their data; the test is based on the Wald statistic. We find that their model generates excessive variance compared with the data. But their...

This paper uses data from the Indonesian manufacturing census in order to uncover the determinants of firm exports over the period 1990-2005. We examine to what extent differences in firm export propensity and intensity are a consequence of firm-level (microeconomic), of place-based...

This Paper reviews the controversy over China’s exchange rate regime. Placing the issue in the context of the literature on exit strategies, it argues that now is the best time for China to exit from its peg. Moving to a managed float would be in the country’s own interest; it would help the...

This paper argues that the recent Southeast Asian currency crises was caused by large prospective deficits associated with implicit bailout guarantees to failing banking systems. We articulate this view using a simple dynamic general equilibrium model whose key feature is that a speculative...

Following the Asian financial crisis in 1997-98, a number of Asian central banks adopted inflation targeting. We explore how successful this framework has been by looking at the persistence of inflation, as measured by the sum of the coefficients in an autoregressive model for inflation, using a...

This paper is intended to make four main points that are relevant for previously planned economies in transition to a market economy. First, national output can be increased by reducing or eliminating relative price distortions through price reform and free trade and by thus enhancing...

We construct and numerically solve a dynamic Heckscher-Ohlin model in which the initial distribution of production factors in the world makes worldwide factor price equalization impossible, and leads countries to group in two diversification cones. We study the dynamics of income per capita and...

This Paper reviews the relationship between natural resource dependence and economic growth, and stresses how natural capital intensity tends to crowd out foreign capital, social capital, human capital, physical capital, and financial capital, thereby impeding economic growth across countries....