Reflecting the large initial distortions, trade, exchange rate, and energy reforms could generate large welfare gains for the Islamic Republic of Iran. If combined with direct income payments to all households (not just the poor), the poor would benefit enormously. The authors show that well...

In recent years we have seen a growing number of banking and financial crises in emerging market countries, with great costs to their economies. But we now have a much better understanding of why these crises occur and a better idea how they can be prevented

In economically volatile conditions in which it is more difficult for the public to distinguish inflation deliberately generated by government from inflation created by unanticipated economic shocks, the anti-inflationary effect of central bank independence will be unchanged but the...

A coordinated action by East Asian countries to stabilize their currencies against a common basket of major currencies (broadly representative of their average structure of trade and foreign direct investment) would help stabilize both intraregional exchange rates and effective exchange rates,...

More effort should be made to develop a framework for international monetary coordination, not only to maintain stable exchange rates among the U.S. dollar, the Japanese yen, and the euro, but to minimize the risk of currency and financial crises in emerging economies in East Asia and elsewhere

Lessons from world experience about the consequences of exchange rate overvaluation (the frequent cause of trade crises), the consequences of trying to defend an overvalued exchange rate, and the most appropriate policies for resolving an overvaluation