The paper presents a theoretical model to explain how debt overhang is generated in low-income countries and discusses its implications for debt relief. The paper indicates that the extent of debt overhang, and the effectiveness of debt relief, would depend on a recipient country''s initial...

This paper reviews the current monetary and exchange rate policy frameworks in Armenia and Georgia, and the challenges associated with the choice of a credible nominal anchor in the context of large nominal and real shocks. The paper makes a case for a gradual transition to full-fledged...

The paper examines the evolution of the institutional setup of Lithuania`s Currency Board Arrangement (CBA) and competitiveness from 1994 through 2001, with a view to determining the resilience of the Lithuanian CBA to external shocks in 2002-03. First, several indicators of competitiveness are...

We examine the effect of uncertainty arising from policy-shock volatility on yield-curve dynamics. In contrast to the assumption of many macro-finance models, policy-shock processes appear to be time varying and persistent. We allow for this heteroskedasticity by constructing a no-arbitrage...

This note analyzes the yield-curve predictability for GDP growth by modifying the time-series property of the interest rate process in Ang, Piazzesi, and Wei (2006). When interest rates have a unit root and term spreads are stationary, the short rate's forecasting role changes, and the combined...

This paper applies a tractable two-regime macro-finance affine term structure model to empirically investigate macroeconomic effects on Japanese government bond (JGB) yields in and out of a zero interest rate environment. The estimated results qualitatively assess how differently deflation and...

I construct a no-arbitrage term structure model with endogenous regime shifts and apply it to Japanese government bond (JGB) yields. This application subjects the short-term interest rate to monetary regime shifts, such as a zero interest rate policy (ZIRP) and normal regimes, which depend on...

This note analyzes the yield-curve predictability for GDP growth by modifying the time-series property of the interest rate process in Ang, Piazzesi, and Wei (2006). When interest rates have a unit root and term spreads are stationary, the short rate's forecasting role changes, and the combined...