Just as in established market economies, many Russian firms provide non-wage benefits such as housing, medical care or day care to their employees. Interpreting this as a strategic choice of firms in an imperfect labor market, this paper examines unique survey data for 404 large and medium-size...

The study examines the reasons for financial crises in 31 emerging market countries during 1980-2001. It estimates a probit model using 23 macroeconomic and financial sector variables. Traditional variables such as unemployment and inflation, as well as several indicators of indebtedness such as...

Estimating money demand functions for Russia following the 1998 crisis, we find a stable money demand relationship when augmented by a deterministic trend signifying falling velocity. As predicted by theory, higher income boosts demand for real rouble balances and the income elasticity of money...

Several transition countries have experienced strong real exchange rate appreciations. This paper tests the hypothesis that these appreciations reflect underlying productivity gains in the tradable sector. Using panel data over the period 1993–98, the results show clear evidence of...

The paper presents an econometric study of the two bank ratings assigned by Moody's Investors Service. According to Moody’s methodology, foreign-currency long-term deposit ratings are assigned on the basis of Bank Financial Strength Ratings (BFSR), taking into account “external bank support...

This paper makes an empirical examination of the relationship between fiscal balance and structural reforms using panel data from 25 transition economies. The results indicate that price liberalisation has a positive impact on fiscal performance, while privatisation and restructuring, via...

This paper examines the problem of Dutch disease in Russia during the oil boom of the 2000s, from both the theoretical and empirical points of view. Our analysis is based on the classical model of Dutch disease by Corden and Neary (1982). We examine the relationship between changes in the real...

Relying on quarterly data since 1998 we estimate, for China and the U.S., small scale econometric models that economize on the number of variables employed and yet are rich enough to provide useful insights about spillover effects between the two countries under different maintained assumptions...

The large and persistent deviations of nominal exchange rates from their purchasing power parities comprise a key stylized fact in international economics. This paper sheds light on these persistent deviations by combining two disparate strands of empirical work. The first strand focuses on real...

This paper presents a MIDAS type mixed frequency VAR forecasting model. First, we propose a general and compact mixed frequency VAR framework using a stacked vector approach. Second, we integrate the mixed frequency VAR with a MIDAS type Almon lag polynomial scheme which is designed to reduce...