This paper investigates fiscal developments in 112 countries during the 1990s. It finds that while the overall fiscal balance improved in most of them, the composition of this improvement differed. In countries without IMF-supported programmes, revenues increased modestly and expenditure...

From the early 1960s to the early 1980s, the officially recorded output of cocoa in Ghana declined by 60 percent. During the 1983-95 Economic Recovery Program, however, cocoa official output doubled. Although these developments have inspired much empirical research, most of the studies have been...

Does monetary policy react systematically to macroeconomic innovations? In a sample of 16 countries - operating under various monetary regimes - we find that monetary policy decisions, as expressed in yield curve movements, do react to macroeconomic innovations and these reactions reflect the...

The Central Bank of Morocco has been working on developing a Forecasting and Policy Analysis System (FPAS) to support a gradual move toward a more flexible exchange rate regime and the eventual adoption of a full-fledged inflation-targeting (IT) regime. At the center of the FPAS is a quarterly...

We study whether clarity of central bank inflation reports affects return volatility in financial markets. We measure clarity of reports by the Czech National Bank, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, and Sveriges Riksbank using the Flesch-Kincaid grade level, a standard readability...

This paper examines whether the clarity of central bank communication about inflation has changed with the economic environment. We use readability statistics and content analysis to study the clarity of communication on the inflation outlook by seven central banks between 1997 and 2010....

We use two alternative representations of the yield curve to test the functioning of the interest rate transmission mechanism along the yield curve based on government paper in a sample of emerging market and low-income countries. We find a robust link from shortterm policy and interbank rates...

This paper focuses on the macroeconomic aspects of fiscal management in aid-receiving countries. Despite the declining share of aid in budgets of donor countries, aid continues to play an important role in many developing countries. The paper first discusses the implications of aid in the...

The paper looks at the hypothesis that financial market liberalization can create a basis for more stable exchange rates, as deviations of exchange rates from equilibrium levels bring forth stabilizing flows of liquidity. This hypothesis suggests that opening financial markets militates in favor...

This paper examines whether the clarity of central bank communication about inflation has changed with the economic environment. We use readability statistics and content analysis to study the clarity of communication on the inflation outlook by seven central banks between 1997 and 2010....