The paper first describes how the Czech National Bank (CNB) moved gradually from a fixed exchange rate regime to the frontiers of Inflation-Forecast Targeting. It then focuses on the CNB’s recent experience in adding the exchange rate as a complementary monetary policy tool to stimulate...

This article provides an alternative explanation for the ‘resource curse’ based on the income effect resulting from high government current spending in resource rich economies. Using a simple life cycle framework, we show that private investment in the nonresource sector is adversely...

The paper provides an alternative explanation for the “resource curse” based on the income effect resulting from high government current spending in resource rich economies. Using a simple life cycle framework, we show that private investment in the non-resource sector is adversely affected...

Existing economic indicators and indexes assess economic activity but no single indicator measures the general macro-economic performance of a nation, state, or region in a methodologically simple and intuitive way. This paper proposes a simple, yet informative metric called the Economic...

The GCC countries maintain a policy of open capital accounts and a pegged (or nearly-pegged) exchange rate, thereby reducing their freedom to run an independent monetary policy. This paper shows, however, that the pass-through of policy rates to retail rates is on the low side, reflecting the...