Unsustainable fiscal deficits were the chief reason for the inflation that has persisted in Eastern Europe since 1989. Deficits need to be cut back, but by how much for a given inflation target? The authors develop a simple framework for debt, the deficit, and inflation to study the interactions...

After being excluded from world capital markets during the debt crisis, many developing countries have experienced large capital inflows in the past five years. The challenges these inflows pose for domestice policy have generated a substantial literature. The authors review and extend that...

The transmission of shocks and policy changes depends crucially on the structure of the economy. The authors analyze the impact of two classes of external shocks in open economies, using a rational-expectations framework that tests three prototype economies: (1) a neoclassical, full-employment...

Typically the impact of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is analyzed from a macroeconomic perspective, to examine the implications for capital market flows or for the aggregate degree of financial integration. This analysis often involves examining whether certain conditions of...

In this paper, the authors examine monetary policy in 26 transition economies in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Former Soviet Union (FSU) between 1989-1994. They provide a schema for classifying the use of 6 important monetary policy instruments, both direct and indirect, and suggest...

This paper is part of a larger effort to study the determinants and impact of foreign direct investment. The authors examine flows of foreign direct investment to 46 developing countries to test whether such flows are autonomous or accommodating vis-a-vis the current account and other capital...

While expansive literature on central bank independence contains some criticisms to the independent central bank quasi-paradigm, few critical analyses have been undertaken in the years between Friedman (1962) and Posen (1994). The author extends Posen's analysis to developing countries,...

The author describes a spread-sheet planning model to help determine the government deficit consistent with a policymaker's"vector"of principal macroeconomic objectives (including real GDP growth, inflation, exchange rate, and international reserve accumulation). The model focuses on the...

This paper extends earlier work on current-price budget identities to treat constant-price flow relations. It introduces relative prices and constant-prices values for all relevant output and aggregate demand components and permits a distinction between real variables and relative price changes....

This paper presents the findings of a survey conducted by the World Bank of central banks in 40 developing countries across different regions in the world. The survey focused on the following topics: (1) coverage of national statistics on remittances, (2) cost of transferring and delivering...