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....

This paper examines whether the clarity of central bank communication about inflation has changed with the economic environment. We use readability statistics and content analysis to study the clarity of communication on the inflation outlook by seven central banks between 1997 and 2010....

The downturn has accentuated strains on the financial system of Anguilla. The 2011 Article IV Consultation highlights that the growth outlook is improving with major tourism projects getting back on course, although a slow recovery is only expected to begin in 2012. Executive Directors have...

The paper presents estimates of a model of the credibility of the U.K. commitment to its central parity against the deutsche mark during the period of U.K. ERM membership (1990-92). The measure of credibility used is the long-term interest differential with Germany. Credibility is decomposed...

This Selected Issues paper analyzes the impact of globalization inflation and relative prices over the last decade in the United Kingdom. The IMF’s Global Economy Model is used to estimate the relative importance of the various factors argued to have influenced the evolution of inflation and...

This Selected Issues paper on the United Kingdom describes the issues related to the choice between different types of inflation targeting frameworks and the features of the Bank of England's framework. The paper focuses the trade-off between program costs, efficiency, and concerns about equity...

International Financial Statistics provides a complete library of continuously updated international statistics on all aspects of international and domestic finance. The monthly print edition contains over 1,000 pages of statistical data in each issue. It reports, for most countries of the...

This paper investigates the degree of bank competition in the euro area, the U.S. and U.K. before and after the recent financial crisis, and revisits the issue whether the introduction of EMU and the euro have had any impact on bank competition. The results suggest that the level of bank...

International Financial Statistics provides a complete library of continuously updated international statistics on all aspects of international and domestic finance. The monthly print edition contains over 1,000 pages of statistical data in each issue. It reports, for most countries of the...