As China's economy becomes more market based and continues its rapid integration into the global economy, having an independent and effective monetary policy regime oriented to domestic objectives will become increasingly important. Employing modern principles of monetary policy in light of the...

This paper analyzes monetary policy in transition. It examines the dynamics of monetary policy in Mongolia using granger-causality tests for monetary variables and inflation. The paper also analyzes money demand using data from 22 Mongolian regions during 1993-1998. The analyses confirm the key...

In the 1990s, transition countries underwent large adjustments to address fiscal imbalances. This paper examines whether the factors identified in the literature on advanced economies, the size and composition of adjustment, are important in transition economies. It finds that larger...

Interest rate pass-through from policy interest rates to market rates and inflation has been hypothesized to play a lesser role in Romania than in other Central European transition economies. This paper tests this hypothesis and concludes that it cannot be supported by the data. Hence...

This paper assesses changes in the size and scope of government in 24 transition economies. Whereas these governments have retrenched in terms of public expenditures in relation to GDP, as well as public employment as a share of population, some indicators suggest that size remains high (e.g.,...

The paper explains the behavior of inflation in Georgia in the post-stabilization period. A long-run equation linking prices to money and the exchange rate, as well as a short-run, dynamic equation for inflation are estimated. The inflation equation is stable, points to a dominant role of the...

Over the past two years, ongoing political transitions in many Arab countries have led to social unrest and an economic downturn. This paper examines comparable historical episodes of political instability to derive implications for the near- and medium-term economic outlook in the Arab...

This paper surveys the evidence on the effectiveness of monetary transmission in low-income countries. It is hard to come away from this review with much confidence in the strength of monetary transmission in such countries. We distinguish between the "facts on the ground" and "methodological...

IMF lending is conditional on a country's commitment to carry out an agreed program of economic policies. Unless that commitment is genuine and broadly held, the likelihood of implementation will be poor. Is there a conflict between national commitment and conditional finance? Are national...

As Albania has succeeded in reducing inflation to very low levels, understanding the driving forces behind the behavior of the price level becomes increasingly important for policy design. In particular, persistent changes in relative prices may contribute to movements of the aggregate price...