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...

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...

Upon entry into the European Union, countries become members of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), with a derogation from adopting the euro as their currency (that is, each country joining the EU commits to replace its national currency with the euro, but can choose when to request...

This is the fourth of a series of papers that are being written as part of a larger project to estimate a small quarterly Global Projection Model (GPM). The GPM project is designed to improve the toolkit to which economists have access for studying both own-country and cross-country linkages. In...

The main findings are as follows: (1) an increase in private national saving during 2001-03 was the key contributor to the turnaround in Pakistan''s external current account during this period; (2) while Pakistan''s growth was mainly export-led before 2003-04, it was largely led by domestic...

Overall competitiveness of the Dutch economy seems adequate, but domestically produced exports have lost market share recently. Over the past three decades, globalization has greatly influenced economies as countries have become more integrated. Empirical studies on business cycles...

This Selected Issues paper for Indonesia uses a small structural macroeconomics model of the Indonesian economy to analyze the inflation outlook and monetary policy challenges. The Bank of Indonesia (BI) introduced its Inflation Targeting Framework in July 2005 with the goal to reduce inflation...

This Selected Issues paper discusses the policy response by a sample of central banks to the ongoing oil and food price shocks in South Africa, drawing some lessons, which can help put in context developments in the country. The paper discusses first- and second-round effects of “supply...

This paper presents a simple structural model of inflation adapted for Nigeria based on the methodology of Berg, Karam, and Laxton. This approach allows different policy options to be considered systematically in a baseline forecasting exercise. The development and calibration of this model are...