This Occasional Paper provides an overview of the main challenges facing Hong Kong SAR as it continues to become more closely integrated with the mainland of China. Section I provides an overview of recent macroeconomic developments and the main policy issues in Hong Kong SAR. Section II...

This paper assesses the relative importance of alternative explanations for the rise in long-term interest rates in the United States from October 1993 to April 1994. Standard econometric models of the term structure are shown to have a structural break in the early 1980s. An important reason...

The paper discusses the limits to market-based risk transfer in the financial system and the implications for the management of systemic long-term financial risks. Financial instruments or markets to transfer and better manage these risks across institutions and sectors are, as yet, either...

This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between financial openness and total factor productivity (TFP) growth using an extensive dataset that includes various measures of productivity and financial openness for a large sample of countries. We find that de jure capital...

In this paper, we develop a proposal for a controlled approach to capital account liberalization for economies experiencing large capital inflows. The proposal essentially involves securitizing a portion of capital inflows through closed-end mutual funds that issue shares in domestic currency,...

This paper analyzes the evolution of the degree of global cyclical interdependence over the period 1960-2005. We categorize the 106 countries in our sample into three groups-industrial countries, emerging markets, and other developing economies. Using a dynamic factor model, we then decompose...

The influential work of Ramey and Ramey (1995) highlighted an empirical relationship that has now come to be regarded as conventional wisdom-that output volatility and growth are negatively correlated. We reexamine this relationship in the context of globalization-a term typically used to...

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...

In theory, one of the main benefits of financial globalization is that it should allow for more efficient international risk sharing. This paper provides a comprehensive empirical evaluation of the patterns of risk sharing among different groups of countries and examines how international...