The staff report for the Second Review Under the Three-Year Arrangement Under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility focuses on the Republic of Armenia’s economic environment and policy discussion. Financial sector reforms will focus on improving corporate governance, strengthening...

This paper explores the role of exchange rates in emerging economies with inflation-targeting regimes, an issue that has become especially germane during the current episode of financial turmoil and volatile capital flows. Under inflation targeting, the interest rate is the main monetary policy...

This paper proposes a new taxonomy of monetary regimes defined by the choice and clarity of the nominal anchor. The regimes are as follows: (i) monetary nonautonomy, (ii) weak anchor, (iii) money anchor, (iv) exchange rate peg, (v) full-fledged inflation targeting, (vi) implicit price stability...

Modifications to Japan's monetary policy framework will be needed as positive inflation resumes because the current monetary regime and operations are tailored to ending deflation. The paper suggests that the monetary regime should move from an "anti-deflation" objective to an inflation...

Some recent studies suggest the possibility of estimating a stable aggregate demand-for-money relationship for the group of countries participating in the European Monetary System. These results are of particular relevance in connection with the task of setting policy targets for a European...

This paper takes stock of the evolution of the international monetary system over the last thousand years. Several points stand out from the analysis. One is the reluctance of governments to embrace radical changes in international monetary relations. Another is the conflict between external and...

This paper studies the optimal design of monetary policy in an optimizing two-country sticky price model. We suppose that the production sequence of final consumption goods stretches across both countries and is associated with vertical trade. Prices of final consumption goods are sticky in the...

This paper classifies countries that define their monetary policy framework by an inflation target into full-fledged inflation targeters, eclectic inflation targeters and inflation targeting lite regimes. This classification is based on indicators of the clarity and credibility of the commitment...

This paper uses a two-sector model to estimate the relationship between prices, money, and the exchange rate in Madagascar during the period 1982-2004. The estimated model, using quarterly data, finds a stable long-run relationship among monetary aggregates, domestic prices, real income, and...

This paper is the first attempt to look at inflation dynamics and monetary transmission mechanisms in Armenia in the context of a full information model containing three interrelated markets: foreign exchange, money, and labor. Using the vector error correction model (VECM) approach, we find...