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,...

In this paper we consider a standard policy game between the Government and a union. In such a framework, we first investigate the effects of corporatism on macroeconomic performance vis-à-vis different kinds of non-co-operative equilibria. Afterwards, we introduce in the literature the issue...

The aim of this paper is to investigate both the efficacy and the stability properties of monetary policy rules in presence of heterogeneous consumers. We aim to underline the link between the well- known Taylor Principle and the demand-policy regimes, defined on the basis of the monetary policy...

This paper describes the Federal Reserve's analytical framework under Volcker and Greenspan, as it was constructed in the early 1980s, during a period of high inflation. It traces the modeling and policy implications of this framework. It discusses the Fed's actual track record and the state of...

This paper proposes a simple framework for analyzing a continuum of monetary policy rules characterized by differing degrees of credibility, in which commitment and discretion become special cases of what we call quasi commitment. The monetary policy authority is assumed to formulate optimal...

The paper reviews the recent conduct of monetary policy and the central bank’s rule-based behavior in Russia. Using different policy rules, we test whether the central bank in Russia reacts to changes in inflation, output gap and the exchange rate in a consistent and predictable manner. Our...

The thrust of current deposit insurance reform--risk-based insurance premiums and capital requirements--is an effort to price deposit insurance more fairly. Fairly pricing deposit insurance eliminates inequitable wealth transfers, but it does not lead to an efficient equilibrium. This paper...

The framework of a general equilibrium heterogeneous agent model is used to study the optimal design of an unemployment insurance (UI) scheme and the voting behaviour on unemployment policy reforms. In a first step, the optimal defined benefit and defined replacement ratio UI systems are...

The research presented in this paper is undertaken in response to the debate on capital flight from Russia. This debate usually involves discussion of its determinants but misses the question of its ultimate effects on the economy. Lack of understanding of the economic nature of capital flight...

This essay brings fiscal federalism theory into contact with the knowledge perspective to economic organization. The question addressed is: can a central government be justified in the context of fiscal federalism on grounds of economic organization? We point out that if one looks at the...