This paper provides empirical estimates of contracting models of the Phillips curve for four middle-income developing economies-Chile, the Republic of Korea, the Philippines, and Turkey. Following an analytical review, models with both one lead and one lag, and two lags and three leads, are then...

The authors investigate the behavior and determinants of inflation in Albania, using three approaches. They decompose inflation into four components: seasonal, cyclical, trend, and random: rely on the widely used Granger causality test, using disaggregated data on both the consumer price index...

Emerging market economies (EMEs) have experienced a noticeable decline in inflation since the mid-1990s. Whether this stable price environment in EMEs is likely to endure and what kind of policies need to be followed to ensure price stability, however, still continue to be questions of...

Access to financial services, or rather the lack thereof, is often indiscriminately decried as a problem in many developing countries. The authors argue that the"problem of access"should rather be analyzed by identifying different demand and supply constraints. They use the concept of an access...

Using bank-level data, the authors apply the Panzar and Rosse (1987) methodology to estimate the extent to which changes in input prices are reflected in revenues earned by specific banks in 50 countries'banking systems. They then relate this competitiveness measure to indicators of...

The welfare effects of preferential trading agreements, are most directly linked to changes in trade prices - that is, the terms of trade. The authors use a simple strategic pricing game in segmented markets, to measure the effects of MERCOSUR on the pricing of"non-member"exports to the regional...

The Uruguay Round agreements on agriculture were intended to move member countries toward a fair and market-oriented agricultural trading system. By progressively reducing domestic government support and export subsidies, converting nontariff barriers to tariffs, and reducing barriers to market...

To analyze the main determinants of secondary market prices of Bulgarian Brady Bonds, the authors investigate to what extent fluctuations in domestic fundamentals affect the bonds'secondary market price. They also assess the extent to which external shocks affect the bonds'prices. They estimate...

The authors analyze the U.S. demandfor Bangladeshi imports for products restricted under the Multifiber Arrangement. Because Bangladesh is only a small supplier of these products and Latin American and Asian countries can supply close substitutes, the authors expected a high elasticity of demand...

The growing adoption of an inflation targeting framework in emerging market economies has increased the importance of understanding inflation dynamics and forecasting its future path in these countries. The author considers the case of Turkey and investigates the performance of models that have...