A genuine reform of the IMF would require as much a redirection of its activities as improvements in its policies and operational modalities. There is no sound rationale for the Fund to be involved in development and trade policy, or in bail-out operations in emerging market crises. It should...

This paper endeavours to provide a comprehensive analysis of the nature and the possible importance of “global excess liquidity”, a concept which has attracted considerable attention in recent years. The contribution of this paper is threefold. First, we present some conceptual discussion on...

This paper asks how Asia should prepare for the disorderly correction of global imbalances. It recommends tightening monetary policy and allowing Asian currencies to appreciate as a way of achieving a better balance between internal and external demand. Leaving the overall level of demand...

This paper asks how Asia should prepare for the disorderly correction of global imbalances. It recommends tightening monetary policy and allowing Asian currencies to appreciate as a way of achieving a better balance between internal and external demand. Leaving the overall level of demand...

The exchange of taxpayer-specific information between national tax authorities has recently emerged as a key and controversial topic in international tax policy discussions, most notably with the OECD s harmful tax practices project and the EU s savings tax initiative.This paper analyses the...

This paper analyses the properties of multivariate tests of purchasing power parity (PPP) that fail to take heterogeneity in the speed of mean reversion across real exchange rates into account. We compare the performance of homogeneous and heterogeneous unit root testing methodologies. The...

Due to growing skepticism over the globalisation process across countries, economists in the emerging market economies (EMEs) are anxious to know how the integration of financial markets was associated with the recent global crisis and whether there could be some key lessons for the broader...

Royal Ahold (Koninklijke Ahold NV) was one of the major success stories in the 1990s and is one of the major failures, suffering a complete meltdown, in 2003.We investigate the strategy, accounting transparency and corporate governance of Ahold; elements which jointly drive the firm s performance...

The purpose of this paper is to gather evidence on the success of market forces in promoting investor interests through self-regulation.Corporate governance is a complex mechanism design problem that is both economic and legal/political based.As such there is great interest in whether (and when)...