The optimal provision of loan guarantees or deposit insurance is examined in the context of an overlapping generations model. It is demonstrated that even in the face of a market imperfection that precludes diversification of the private sector’s loan portfolio to eliminate risk, full...

This paper develops a public education scheme that takes uncertainty aspects of private educational investments explicitly into account. In the author’s framework, the social merits of public education schemes are related to the lack of markets in which students can insure against educational...

Using Chilean data, we document that for resource-rich small open economies the effects of terms of trade shocks on the wage gap (between skilled and unskilled workers) depend on factor intensities in the non-tradable sector, following the model in Galiani, Heymann, and Magud (2010). For a...

In pursuing a steady-state reserve target, policymakers in small open economies can resort to devaluation or to temporary increases in public saving. This paper contrasts the dynamic implications of these alternative policies in a model with optimizing agents who possess perfect foresight. In...

Over the past decade, global output has grown by more than 3 percent a year and inflation has slowed in most regions. The fruits of this growthhave not been shared equally, however, and income disparities have grownin many countries, developed as well as developing. One of the mostpressing...

This paper develops a new macrofinance model for small open economies, allowing the investigation of Mauritius''s experience with ''inflation targeting lite'' as described in Stone (2003). It finds that this monetary policy regime has been associated with a general reduction in inflation,...

The small states of the Asia and Pacific region face unique challenges in raising their growth potential and living standards. These countries are particularly vulnerable because of their small populations, geographical isolation and dispersion, narrow export and production bases, lack of...

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 report provides the details of the IMF's projections and estimates on the Republic of Poland's sectoral breakdown of investment; value added by sector; growth and structure of agricultural production, during 1992–98; wages and salaries; private sector employment by sector, during 1993–98;...