This study characterizes volatility dynamics in external emerging bond markets and examines how prices and volatility respond to news about macroeconomic fundamentals. As in mature bond markets, macroeconomic surprises in external emerging bond markets are found to a¤ect both conditional...

This paper analyzes reserve adequacy in emerging market countries. It argues that the old rule of thumb of maintaining reserves equivalent to three months of imports has become obsolete and that, instead, a new benchmark is needed which takes into account the increased importance of capital...

The paper discusses the interrelationships between payments system reform and monetary policy implementation in selected countries in Central and Eastern Europe. The reforms in the payments system are viewed as closely interrelated with the development of money and foreign exchange markets and...

This paper examines how durable goods and financial frictions shape the business cycle of a small open economy subject to shocks to trend and transitory shocks. In the data, nondurable consumption is not as volatile as income for both developed and emerging market economies. The simulation of...

This paper investigates linkages between stock markets in seven industrialized countries since 1974. Empirical evidence shows that both nominal and real stock prices (and returns) are strongly positively correlated across countries, and that nominal exchange rate changes do not have systematic...

Hong Kong SAR''s government faces the dual challenges of volatile revenue and medium term spending pressures arising from a rapidly aging population. Age-related spending pressures raise long-run sustainability concerns, while revenue volatility creates risks to service provision, possibly...

The easing of controls on interest rates has led to higher interest rate volatility in India. Hence, there is a need to measure and monitor the interest rate exposure of Indian banks. Using publicly available information, this paper attempts to assess the interest rate risk carried by a sample...

We study the impact of a minimum wage on business cycle volatility, depending upon its coverage and adjustment mechanism. As with other small open economies, Hong Kong SAR is vulnerable to external shocks, with its exchange rate regime precluding active monetary policy. Adjustment to past shocks...

This paper examines the impact of trade costs on real exchange rate volatility. We incorporate a multi-country Ricardian model of trade, based on the work of Eaton and Kortum (2002), into a macroeconomic model to show how bilateral real exchange rate volatility depends on relative technological...