This paper provides an overview of the potential macroeconomic effects of HIV/AIDS in Botswana, focusing on the key channels through which the pandemic is likely to affect the economic outlook and on the uncertainties involved. To estimate the impact of HIV/AIDS, a dual-economy equilibrium model...

The ongoing financial turmoil has triggered a lively debate on ways of containing systemic risk and lessening the likelihood of boom-and-bust episodes in credit markets. Particularly, it has been argued that banking regulation might attenuate procyclicality in lending standards by affecting the...

Following the 2000 stockmarket crash, have US interest rates been held "too low" in relation to their natural level? Most likely, yes. Using a structural model, this paper attempts a real-time assessment of the US monetary policy while ensuring consistency between the specification of price...

Under a flexible inflation targeting regime, should policymakers avoid any reaction to movements in the foreign exchange market? Using data for six advanced open economies explicitly targeting inflation, this article examines empirically whether real exchange rate disequilibria systematically...

The ongoing financial turmoil has triggered a lively debate on ways of containing systemic risk and lessening the likelihood of future boom-and-bust episodes in credit markets. Particularly, it has been argued that banking regulation might attenuate procyclicality in lending standards by...

The recent financial crisis raises important issues about the transmission of financial shocks across borders. In this paper, a global vector autoregressive (GVAR) model is constructed to assess the relevance of international spillovers following a historical slowdown in U.S. equity prices. The...

Using unobserved stochastic components and Kalman filter techniques, the paper assesses the relative importance of transitory and permanent shifts in Italian real GDP within a production function framework. Evidence suggests that the increase in hours worked that has accompanied pension and...