This Occasional Paper provides an overview of the main challenges facing Hong Kong SAR as it continues to become more closely integrated with the mainland of China. Section I provides an overview of recent macroeconomic developments and the main policy issues in Hong Kong SAR. Section II...

This Occasional Paper provides an overview of the main challenges facing Hong Kong SAR as it continues to become more closely integrated with the mainland of China. Section I provides an overview of recent macroeconomic developments and the main policy issues in Hong Kong SAR. Section II...

This paper assesses the relative importance of alternative explanations for the rise in long-term interest rates in the United States from October 1993 to April 1994. Standard econometric models of the term structure are shown to have a structural break in the early 1980s. An important reason...

The paper discusses the limits to market-based risk transfer in the financial system and the implications for the management of systemic long-term financial risks. Financial instruments or markets to transfer and better manage these risks across institutions and sectors are, as yet, either...

This paper analyzes the evolution of the degree of global cyclical interdependence over the period 1960-2005. We categorize the 106 countries in our sample into three groups-industrial countries, emerging markets, and other developing economies. Using a dynamic factor model, we then decompose...

This paper examines recent developments in the Canadian labor market. Using disaggregated labor market data, various hypotheses concerning the slow employment growth and rise in unemployment since 1990 are evaluated. The analysis indicates that a large part of the recent rise in the unemployment...

This paper uses micro panel data to examine differences in the cyclical variability of employment, hours, and real wages for skilled and unskilled workers. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we find that, at the aggregate level, skilled and unskilled workers are subject to essentially the same...

This paper provides evidence that cross-sectional wage inequality in the U.K. rose sharply in the 1980s, continued to rise moderately through the mid-1990s and has remained essentially unchanged since then. As in the U.S., increases in within-group inequality account for a substantial fraction...

The influential work of Ramey and Ramey (1995) highlighted an empirical relationship that has now come to be regarded as conventional wisdom-that output volatility and growth are negatively correlated. We reexamine this relationship in the context of globalization-a term typically used to...