During the last years, a number of countries have adopted formal inflation targeting (IT) monetary policy frameworks in a context of global inflation moderation. This paper studies inflation dynamics in eight Latin American countries, some of which have adopted formal targets. We analyze...

This paper explores the sources of bargaining power in wage negotiations, and examines how productivity and training affect wages. In the standard analyses of wage bargaining, the negotiating partners are specified a priori, and thus it is impossible to address the question of how they achieve...

Obstfeld (1994) shows that a currency crisis can be explained by the occurrence of multiple equi-libria (2 interior equilibria). For the same level of economic fundamentals, it may be optimal forthe government either to devalue or to maintain the peg. The decision depends on the...

The idea of a flat tax, a tax levied at a single rate, has become an increasingly discussed and implemented fiscal strategy across Europe and the rest of the world. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania adopted flat tax systems in 1994 and 1995, making them the first modern countries to adopt flat...

Developing country fiscal policy outcomes documented in data point to stark differences compared with developed ones. Most prominent difference is the excessive volatility of government consumption and transfer payments and their positive correlation relative to output. This seemingly...

Since the abolition of its Apartheid regime in 1994, South Africa has launched a massive program of education, which has been financed through resources representing on average 21% of the national budget or 7% of GDP. Today, the GDP share of public spending on education is 1.3 times the average...