This paper strengthens the claim made by Vito Tanzi that when the effect of a high inflation on the tax system is taken into account, then the overall revenues from inflationary finance may well be negative. The paper analyzes some genuine and neat measures taken in Israel in an attempt to...

This paper reviews recent experience of technical assistance on tax policy provided by the Fiscal Affairs Department to a selected but diversified group of countries that differ both in their geographical locations and in the nature of their economies. The review finds in the technical...

This paper examines the emergence of financial stability as a key policy objective. It discusses the underlying trends in the financial system, as well as the role of finance in relation to money, the real economy, and public policy. Financial stability is defined in terms of its ability to help...

Forward-looking behavior on the part of the monetary authority leads least squares estimates to understate the true growth consequences of monetary policy interventions. We present instrumental variables estimates of the impact of interest rates on real output growth for several European...

This paper evaluates the performance of two alternative policy rules, a forward-looking rule and a spontaneous adjustment rule, under alternative inflation targets, in terms of output losses in a macroeconomic model, using European Union data. The simulations suggest that forward-looking rules...

We document external investment positions among European Union countries at the start of the financial crisis through the creation of a new database comprising bilateral external financial asset and liabilities, excluding reserve assets and derivatives. While there are some gaps in the data, the...

This paper documents and analyzes crisis-related changes in government debt issuance practices in the 16 euro zone countries and Denmark. Using a newly constructed database on primary market debt issuance during 2007-09, we find evidence of a shift away from pre-crisis standards of best funding...

This paper extends recent work by Feldstein and Horioka (1980) and Bayoumi (1990), and examines saving-investment correlations for industrial countries in the post-war period. The focus of the enquiry is on differences observed between EMS and non-EMS countries. It is seen that the EMS countries...

This study shows that the aggregate demand for M1 in the group of countries participating in the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) of the European Monetary System can be expressed as a stable function of ERM-wide income, inflation, interest rates, and the exchange rate of the European Currency Unit...

Financial integration is likely to entail EEC-wide convergence in both inflation rates and bank reserve requirements, thereby lowering some governments’ seignorage revenues. These revenue losses, however, may be offset by concomitant effects on exchange rate expectations and on interest rates...