Italy’s deep-rooted structural problems resulted in an unsatisfactory productivity performance and a dismal growth over the last 15 years. The global financial crisis has exacerbated these long-standing weaknesses, taking a heavy toll on Italy’s economy. With output back to its...

Across a sample of 34 emerging countries, the evidence shows the frequent existence of a pro-cyclical fiscal impulse. However, the scope for counter-cyclical policy increases with the availability of international reserves, as it enhances credibility and mitigates concerns about the effect of...

Public debt in the Middle East increased during the mid-1990s mainly because of fiscal expansions. It decreased in recent years, thanks to high oil revenue, economic growth, some primary non-oil fiscal adjustment, and debt relief. While countries in the Middle East appear to have adequately...

While inflation differentials in a monetary union can be benign, reflecting a catch-up process, or an adjustment mechanism to asymmetric shocks or different business cycles, they may also indicate distortions related to inefficiencies in domestic product and labor markets that amplify or make...

The paper aims at characterizing the main determinants of the medium-term current account balance for oil-exporting countries using dynamic panel estimation techniques. Previous studies included a very limited number of oil-exporting countries in their samples, raising concerns about the...

Inflationary pressures that had heightened in the oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) since 2003 have moderated in recent times. This paper studies the determinants of inflation in GCC, using an empirical model that includes domestic and external factors. Inflation in major trading partners...

The paper characterizes the main determinants of the medium-term current account balance for oil-exporting countries using dynamic panel estimation techniques. It includes a large number of oil-exporting countries and extends the specifications commonly used in the literature to include an oil...

Across a sample of thirty four emerging countries, the evidence shows the frequent existence of a pro-cyclical fiscal impulse. However, the scope for countercyclical policy increases with the availability of international reserves as it enhances credibility and mitigates concerns about the...

Inflationary pressures have heightened in the oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) since 2003. This paper studies determinants of inflation in GCC, using an empirical model that includes domestic and external factors. Inflation in major trading partners appears to be the most relevant foreign...

This paper studies the detrimental effect of sudden stops on the growth of Thai firms' fixed assets. We focus on the fixed assets adjustment that firms undertake at times of financial constraints. We derive our results from balance sheet data for 284 nonfinancial Thai listed firms. Our data...