Inflation-forecast targeting is state of the art for monetary policy. This book explores first principles, including managing short-term policy trade-offs. The book also outlines efficient operational procedures and reviews the experiences of Canada, the Czech Republic, and India. The analysis...

In economies in transition, the development of financial markets is a common objective linking the monetary and fiscal authorities, while monetary and public debt management cannot be strictly separated. This calls for close coordination of objectives and instruments of monetary and debt...

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...

Anecdotal evidence relates corruption with high levels of military spending. This paper tests empirically whether such a relationship exists. The empirical analysis is based on data from four different sources for up to 120 countries in the period 1985–98. The association between military...

This paper examines the extent to which conclusions of cross-country studies of private savings are robust to allowing for the possible heterogeneity of savings behavior across countries and the inclusion of dynamics. It shows that neglecting heterogeneity and dynamics can lead to misleading...

The paper presents a DGE model designed as a core projection tool to support monetary policy in inflation-targeting (IT) emerging market economies. The paper uses a particularly simple and flexible general equilibrium model structure that can be amended to account for various phenomena that...

A central bank must decide on the frequency with which it will conduct open market operations and the variability in short-term money market that it will allow. It is shown how the optimal operating procedure balances the value of attaining an immediate target and broadcasting the central...

Market reaction to a change in official interest rates will depend on the extent to which the change is anticipated, and on how it is interpreted as a signal of future policy. In this paper, a technique is developed to separate the anticipated and unanticipated components of such changes and is...

This paper presents perhaps the most viable approach for the design of an instrument of government finance (and monetary management) in an Islamic economy where conventional transactions based on an ex-ante promise of a risk-free rate of return are forbidden. Resources to finance government...