In this paper, we develop a North-South endogenous growth model to examine three phases of development in the South: imitation of Northern products; imitation and innovation; and finally, innovation only. In particular, the model has the features of catching up (and potentially overtaking),...

Delegation to independent bodies whose preference can be different from those of the government has been shown to have beneficial commitment benefits in areas as widely diverse as monetary policy and trade. This paper addresses the case for delegation in the context of a cost-reimbursement...

This paper re-examines the issue of the credibility and sustainability of optimal policies derived from Pontryagin's Maximum Principle and generally regarded as time-inconsistent, in models with forward-looking rational expectations. Specifically, it considers the behaviour of such models in the...

This paper contributes to the debate engendered by the Delors Report on the issue of European Monetary Union. It focuses on the options of a strengthened (or hard-) EMS, with a commitment to a fixed exchange rate relative to the Deutschmark, or a European central bank with full monetary union...

This paper examines three questions concerning the international coordination of macroeconomic policy. First it examines whether it is advantageous for governments to cooperate in the determination of monetary and fiscal policies. Second it asks whether it is helpful for governments to establish...

This paper provides a comprehensive assessment of the open economy aspects of the 'delegation game' in which the operation of monetary policy is delegated to independent and `conservative' central bankers with a greater dislike of inflation than the public. When all countries optimally and...

This Paper evaluates alternative designs of indicator regimes for monetary policy in a small stochastic macromodel of the small open economy with rational expectations. The paper first derives methods for deriving optimal control rules and optimal simple feedback rules in rational expectations...

We consider a dynamic model of price regulation with asymmetric information where strategic delegation is available to the regulator. Firms can sink non- contractible, cost-reducing investment but regulators cannot commit to future price levels. We fully characterize the Perfect Bayesian...

Walsh (1995) addresses the government-central bank principal-agent problem where there exists a severe information extraction problem. This is solved by a ‘Walsh contract’ which links the income of the central bank to observed macroeconomic variables, output and inflation. The contract does...

This paper explores the relationship between the myopia, the solvency and the reputation of a government choosing the optimal financing policy given a particular path of government spending. A central result is the demonstration of a logical link between government myopia and insolvency in the...