The main findings are as follows: (1) an increase in private national saving during 2001-03 was the key contributor to the turnaround in Pakistan's external current account during this period; (2) while Pakistan's growth was mainly export-led before 2003-04, it was largely led by domestic demand...

This paper provides new empirical evidence on the impact of financial liberalization on the performance of Indian commercial banks. The analysis focuses on examining the behavior and determinants of bank intermediation costs and profitability during the liberalization period. The empirical...

Estimation and simulation of sustainable real exchange rates in some of the new EU accession countries point to potential difficulties in sustaining the ERM2 regime if entered too soon and with weak policies. According to the estimates, the Czech, Hungarian, and Polish currencies were overvalued...

Recent years have witnessed a change in the composition of capital flows to developing countries, and FDI and equity flows have been playing an increasing role. In this paper we discuss the challenges for international macroeconomics that these developments pose and characterize stylized facts...

Aid is primarily given to governments whereas the engine of sustained growth is the private sector. It is therefore illusory to investigate the impact of aid on growth without considering the impact of government interventions on the private sector. The model shows how these interventions...

Gravity factors explain a large part of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows in Southeastern Europe-a region not comprehensively covered before in econometric studies-but hostcountry policies also matter. Key are policies that affect relative unit labor costs, the corporate tax burden,...

We introduce local and foreign investors in a simple model of speculative attacks. Local investors have less tolerance for overvaluation of the fixed exchange rate because they tend to incur lower costs when taking a short position and possess better information, and because of moral hazard...

This paper reviews the economics of trade policy in financial services, highlighting differences between trade across borders and through commercial presence. Trade liberalization could complement other financial reforms by enhancing the efficiency, quality, and variety of financial services and...

This paper takes a step in empirically testing the implications of a number of theoretical models that attempt to highlight the dynamics behind currency crises. By focusing on countries with broadly disparate economic and political arrangements, the study attempts to determine the extent to...

Income earned by the branches and subsidiaries of multinational firms can be either reinvested in the host country or repatriated as dividends to the firms' headquarters. Despite the rapid growth of foreign direct investment in the 1990s, there has been relatively limited analysis of the...