This book explores the political and economic issues currently challenging EU member states. It analyses and explains how its own economic, and political, relationships have been critically influenced by fierce competition from its rivals in other major global economies, as well as by the...

This paper analyzes the efficiency and determinants of local authority expenditure in England during 1989/90. The capitalization of local spending in house prices is used as a test of efficiency, and it is found that local services are in general excessive from this standpoint. The determinants...

The main objective of this paper is to identify a set of leading indicators of inflation for the United Kingdom, and discuss the conceptual issues pertaining to inflation targeting. The main conclusions are that narrow money has strong leading indicator properties for inflation, while broad...

This paper deals with hysteresis in the desired equilibrium exchange rate (DEER) arising from misalignment. When the actual real exchange rate departs from its DEER value, current account realizations--and consequently, debt service obligations--will differ from those assumed in the initial DEER...

This paper examines and compares the instruments and procedures currently employed by the central banks of France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States for implementing monetary policy in the short run. The analysis indicates that the monetary authorities of these five...

In April 1990, the U.K. Government implemented the largest change to local authority finance in England and Wales since the postwar period. It involves the introduction of a poll tax on domestic residents, the centralization of local business taxes, and an overhaul of Central Government grants....