Tanzania embarked on a structural adjustment program in 1986 after a decade of protracted economic decline. Its program was supported by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank and was accompanied by a substantial increase in foreign assistance. After seven years of adjustment the...

To examine whether a country's exchange rate regime has any impact on inflation and growth performance in transition economies, the authors develop an empirical framework that addresses some of the main problems plaguing empirical work in this strand of the literature: the Lucas critique, the...

Estimating the degree of exchange-rate misalignment remains one of the most challenging empirical problems in an open economy. The basic problem is that the value of the real exchange rate is not observable. Standard theory tells us, however, that the equilibrium real exchange rate is a function...

Using economic rates of return from more than 1,200 public and private sector projects implemented in 61 developing countries, the authors analyze determinants of investment productivity. Results from Tobit estimation demonstrate that the degree of countrywide policy distortions - macroeconomic,...

The authors exploit three-dimensional panel data on prices for twenty seven traded goods, over eighty eight quarters, across ninety six cities in Japan, and the United States, to answer several questions: 1) Does the average exchange rate between countries stray further from zero, than that...

Between 1990 and 2001 the Argentine peso appreciated by 80 percent in real terms, and its overvaluation has been singled out as one of the main suspects in the debate on the causes of the Argentina collapse of late 2001. This paper assesses the degree of real misalignment in Argentina over the...

Despite a trend toward more flexible rates, more than half the world's countries maintain fixed or managed exchange rates. In the 1980s and 1990s, developing countries as a group progressively liberalized their trade regimes, but some governments defend their exchange rate in actions that run...

Credibility and transparency are at the core of the current debate about exchange rate regimes. The steady growth in the magnitude and variability of international capital flows has complicated the question of whether to use floating, fixed, or intermediate exchange rate regimes. Emerging market...

The author analyzes the fiscal policy of primary commodity exporters. After the initial boom in fiscal spending that accompanies a commodity boom, he asks, why do commodity-exporting countries tend to maintain higher spending levels despite a drop in commodity prices. He identifies three factors...

India's growth performance has been impressive over the last two decades. But its sustainability has been in question, first with the 1991 fiscal-balance of payments crisis (BoP), and then again after 1997/98, when fiscal deficits returned to the 10 percent of GDP range and government debt grew....