This book is a critical review of current fiscal and monetary policy in Europe and presents results of both empirical research and a discussion of the theoretical framework behind the policy of the European Central Bank and the Stability and Growth Pact. Macroeconomic policy is often hotly...

This paper provides background to the Board paper on Macro Policy Lessons for a Sound Design of Fiscal Decentralization. It summarizes the findings and recommendations of the Fiscal Affairs Department (FAD) for ten countries to which it provided advice on fiscal decentralization. The selected...

Fiscal decentralization has been, and remains high on the policy agenda of many countries. It is mainly driven by political pressures, which tend to be especially evident in countries with multiple ethnicities, and/or wide regional disparities in incomes or resource endowments. More generally,...

Since 2008, economic policymakers and researchers have occupied a brave new economic world. Previous consensuses have been upended, former assumptions have been cast into doubt, and new approaches have yet to stand the test of time. Policymakers have been forced to improvise and researchers to...

This book is an up-to-date, authoritative and comprehensive analysis of the key issues and challenges facing regional currency area projects in the context of financial globalization. The authors focus on several central issues that emerged during the experiences of the 1990s and 2000s: exchange...

Nobel Prize winner James Tobin has made outstanding contributions to modern macroeconomics. In this final collection of his work he examines the economic policies of the United States and its relations with other major economies after 1990. In James Tobin's view, the welfare of populations...

There is much confusion in the economics literature on wage determination and the employment-inflation trade-off. Few model builders pay as much careful attention to the definition and meaning of long-run concepts as did Albert Ando. Expanding on years of painstaking work by Ando, the...