The role of the international commodity market in transmitting disturbances is considered in a model that incorporates commodities as an input in production. The analysis employs a three-country framework: a liquidity-constrained commodity supplier and two industrial countries that import the...

This paper attempts to identify optimal and sustainable exchange rate regimes in a world economy comprising two countries. By developing a Barro-Gordon two-country macroeconomic model, noncooperative equilibria are obtained under different assumptions of monetary policy commitments and different...

The interwar period was marked by the end of the classical gold standard regime and new levels of macroeconomic disorder in the world economy. The interwar disorder often is linked to policies inconsistent with the constraint of the openeconomy trilemma-the inability of policymakers...

This paper investigates the extent to which output has recovered from the Asian crisis. A regime-switching approach that introduces two state variables is used to decompose recessions in a set of six Asian countries into permanent and transitory components. While growth recovered fairly quickly...

The relationship between the degree of wage indexation chosen by private agents and the degree of public debt indexation chosen by the government is examined. It is shown that the government is likely to increase public debt indexation in response to an increase in wage indexation. By contrast,...

The effects of membership in the ERM are analyzed using vector autoregression techniques. The results indicate that while the ERM has had little effect on the nature of the shocks hitting the economies, it has had a significant effect on the response of member countries to these shocks, making...

This paper uses nonparametric procedures to test for a shift in the volatility of nominal and real exchange rates for members and nonmembers of the ERM. The results imply a reduction in volatility for ERM members, especially during the latter half of its operation. We also demonstrate that this...

The distributional effects of the minimum wage are analyzed in a model where skilled and unskilled labor are inputs into the production function. It is argued that distributional goals are best achieved by letting the labor market clear itself and achieving redistribution through taxes and...

Recent techniques designed to draw inferences about the credibility of changes in macroeconomic policy regimes are examined. An alternative two-step approach, based on the decomposition between permanent and transitory components of a "credibility variable," is proposed. The methodology is then...

Macroeconomic issues pertinent to the international and domestic effects of international VAT harmonization are highlighted, and VAT harmonization policies envisaged for Europe in 1992 are outlined. An intertemporal model is developed to analyze the incentive effects of various tax policies and...