In this paper I use a cross country data set to analyze the relationship between trade orientation, trade distortions and growth. I first develop a simple endogenous growth model that emphasizes the process of technological absorption in small developing countries. According to this model...

Current debates on globalization have tended to focus on financial market volatility and contagion. In fact, many proponents of the imposition of some form of capital restrictions in emerging markets have argued that these would help reduce or even eliminate spillover across emerging market....

A gravity model is used to assess the separate effects of exchange rate volatility and currency unions on international trade. The panel data set used includes bilateral observations for five years spanning 1970 through 1990 for 186 countries. In this data set, there are over one hundred...

Fixed exchange rates are less volatile than floating rates. But the volatility of macroeconomic variables such as money and output does not change very much across exchange rate regimes. This suggests that exchange rate models based only on macroeconomic fundamentals are unlikely to be very...

This paper addresses the issue of whether regimes of fixed exchange rates are a mechanism for shifting volatility inter- temporally. Using a panel of data covering twenty industrialized countries from 1959 through 1993, I examine the volatilities of a host of real and monetary variables....

Exchange rates have been at the center of economic debates in emerging economies. Issues related to the feasibility of flexible exchange rates, the relationship between exchange rate volatility and growth, and the role of exchange rate overvaluation in recent crises, among other, have been...

In recent years, analysts and policy makers alike have been evaluating the nexus between exchange rates and macroeconomic stability. Among the most important questions is why have some countries adopted rigid, including fixed, exchange-rate paper addresses this question from a political economy...

The purpose of this paper is to investigate in detail the behavior of the current account in emerging economies, and in particular its role if any in financial crises. Models of current account behavior are reviewed, and a dynamic model of current account sustainability is developed. The...

This paper characterizes the integration patterns of international currency unions (such as the CFA Franc zone and the East Caribbean Currency Area). We empirically explore different features of currency unions, and compare them both to countries with sovereign monies, and to regions within...