The first decade of economic and monetary union in Europe (EMU) has been a huge success. EMU has significantly benefited its member countries and accelerated the European integration process. Imbalances within EMUdifferences in growth, inflation, competitiveness, current account and budget...

Over the next year another 50,000 people will become unemployed. The number of unemployed will surpass that of the last recession of 1997-98. To address the unemployment challenge New Zealand needs to supplement existing job search assistance with investment in training and business capital to...

The World Trade Organisations 2004 Trade Policy Review of Singapore (WTO-TPR Singapore 2004) depicts the small and outward-oriented economy as one of the most open country to international trade and investment. The review highlights the benefits of the outward-oriented strategy that has enabled...

In response to the 1997 East Asian financial crisis many schemes were initiated to reform the international financial architecture. The proposed reforms had two wideranging objectives : (i) to prevent currency and banking crises and better manage them when they occur; and (ii) to support...

Despite creating a record of number of jobs in 2007 and 2008 (237,000 jobs in 2007 and 202,400 jobs in the first three quarters of 2008) and averaging a growth rate of nearly 10 percent from 2004 to 2007, Singapore was the first East Asian country to fall into a recession from the current global...

The policy measures taken to date in the Asia-Pacific region are helping to cushion the blow of the global recession. Monetary and fiscal policy stimulus has been strong and there has been considerable attention given to strengthening the financial system. Questions, however, remain about how...

Asian economies have undergone significant transformation since 1997/98 financial crisis. In order to reduce risks of balance of payment crisis, Asian policymakers introduced a number of policy reforms, including promotion of current account surpluses, accumulation of foreign reserves and some...

In the turmoil of 20072009, troubles in a relatively small corner of the US mortgage market escalated into a crisis of global proportions. An amplification mechanism were the huge valuation losses on credit instruments, which dwarfed actual losses from default. We argue that these valuation...