On July 1 the Israeli government adopted a comprehensive emergency program for stabilization and recovery which has had dramatic consequences, at least in the very short-run. Within a few months inflation was down to 1-2 percent a month, foreign exchange reserves were rising rapidly andin spite...

The paper analyzes the change in unemployment in 12 OECD countries over the period 1970-83 in terms of underlying aggregate supply and demand shifts. Earlier evidence on wage gaps (given by Brunoand Sachs) is revised and extended. For most European countries a process of reduction in gaps is...

The paper applies an aggregate supply and demand framework for the study of Israel's brand of stagflation. After a very rapid growth period between 1967-1973 Israel's subsequent share growth slowdown and accelerated inflation seem particularly marked by any international comparison. The...

The paper attempts to account for the differential growth performance of the industrial countries and the middle income developing countries in the 1970s in terms of economic theory and some international cross-section comparisons. The theory of adjustment to supply price shocks in an individual...

On the basis of a comparative growth analysis of ten major industrial countries, it is shown that the productivity slowdown of the 1970s can be attributed to a combination of the energy and raw material price shocks and the contractionary macroeconomic policies that were followed in response to...

The resource boom effect and the input price effect of raw material price changes are analyzed within a two-period, two-sector (plus resource industry), open economy framework. Diagrammatic exposition is used to study the 'Dutch disease', and in particular the distinction between the short term...

A simple analytical framework is used to consider alternative exchange rate regimes and their bearing on macroeconomic management of a semi- industrial economy. The emphasis is on the implications of different degrees of capital mobility. One of the topics taken up is the conflict between the...

The paper analyzes the problem of short-term adjustment to a fall in the price of competing imports when thee is wage and price rigidity. This is done in terms of a two-sector model which incorporates a domestically producible import good and a semi-tradeable home good. The effect of a fall in...

Macroeconomic factors in general, and the macropolicy response to common external shocks (such as oil prices and real interest rates) in particular, have in recent decades played a dominant role in countries' protracted growth crises as well as in growth renewal and its long-run sustainability....

The paper considers the interplay of the design and execution of stabilization policy and structural reform with the role of various agents and pressure groups in a democracy. The context is the political economy of Israel's transition from a successful stabilization to a renewed growth process...