Debt sustainability is an essential attribute of good macroeconomic policies but its precise definition is elusive and its assessment is even more challenging. The IMF has developed a sophisticated approach but it must be recognized that, because the future is unknown, any debt sustainability...

Traditionally the IMF's Annual Report on Exchange Arrangements and Exchange Restrictions has been the main source of information about the exchange-rate policies pursued by member countries. The classification contained therein has been used to document the evolution of exchange rate regimes...

Countries in Eastern and Central Europe that are likely to join the European Union will eventually also join the European Monetary Union. The process of accession will entail a transition period at the end of which it is certain that the domestic currency will be replaced by the Euro. This paper...

This paper looks at the measures taken by East Asian countries since the 1997-8 crisis to reduce the odds of a new crisis. It finds that odds are low, but far from zero. Much progress has been done to deal with the vulnerabilities that have been identified so far, but some remain. The massive...

Despite world-wide bloc economies after the Depression, Japan had a tight relationship with the British Commonwealth and created tight connections with the Sterling and the Gold blocs in the late 1930s. The world-wide bloc economies did not isolate Japan.

We study the incidence of offshoring, or trade in tasks, on firms' productivity and on manufacturing employment in a standard economic-geography model with iceberg trade costs and a continuum of tasks. In a two-countries world where one country has a Hick's neutral technological edge over the...

We examine the difference that various exchange rate arrangements can make toward stabilizing effective nominal and real exchange rates, with special attention to the Asian experience. It concludes that formal basket pegging is unlikely to be sustainable but can easily mimicked with...