Although Armenia itself has a population of only about 3 million, an estimated 8 million Armenians live abroad. In this paper, the size and the sources of remittances to Armenia are first discussed. Then, the appropriate definition of remittances and subsequently present estimates of the...

Economic outcomes in Jamaica have fallen short of the authorities’ objectives in recent years. As the government looks to reinvigorate its growth and debt reduction strategy, it is instructive to examine how exogenous shocks and other unanticipated developments can affect economic...

Uruguay has experienced a remarkable recovery since the 2002 crisis, supported by sound policies and favorable external conditions. With the framework put in place in 2002, Uruguay abandoned an exchange rate peg in favor of a free float, adoped a monetary regime initially based on money targets,...

We show the importance of a dynamic aggregation bias in accounting for the PPP puzzle. We prove that established time-series and panel methods substantially exaggerate the persistence of real exchange rates because of heterogeneity in the dynamics of disaggregated relative prices. When...

This paper studies the factors that have influenced countries' participation in IMF drawing programs. IMF drawing programs are defined as the period of a Stand-By Arrangement or an Extended Fund Facilities program during which a country borrows from the Fund. Since this definition excludes...

Under near-singularity conditions typically generated by persistence in current account data the predictions of present value models become extremely sensitive to small sample estimation error. Moreover, traditional Wald tests will distort the likelihood that the model is true. Using OECD data...

The IMF attempts to catalyze and stabilize private capital flows to emerging markets by providing public monitoring and emergency finance. In analyzing its role we contrast cases where banks and bondholders do the lending. Banks have a natural advantage in monitoring and creditor coordination,...

Concentrated distribution of international reserves is puzzling. I show that the growth rates of international reserves bear only a very weak relationship to their initial stocks (scaled by GDP or in absolute terms), and that, by implication, the cross-sectional distribution of reserves conforms...