We designed an experiment that examines how knowledge about the price of a good, and the time at which the information is received, affects how the good is experienced. The good in question was wine, and the price was either high or low. Our results suggest that hosts offering wine to guests can...

In 1999, new monetary policy regimes were adopted in Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico, combining inflation targeting with floating exchange rates. These regime changes have been accompanied by lower volatility in the monetary stance in Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, despite higher inflation...

Wine consumers rely mainly on the label to infer the quality of a bottle. But there is little empirical research on how colours can be interacted with shapes in the design of wine labels. This study draws from an experiment using data from Spain and shows that there are strong preferences for...

This paper assesses the sustainability of global imbalances by testing for the presence of unit roots in the current account positions (measured in relation to GDP) of the United States, China, Japan, Germany and the oil-exporting countries using a methodology that allows for structural breaks...

This paper reviews Brazil's growth performance over the last quarter of a century and discusses the main determinants of a pick-up in growth since the mid-1990s. Emphasis is placed on the policy pay-offs associated with a consolidation of macroeconomic adjustment, which is a pre-condition for...

The bulk of recent literature on foreign exchange interventions has overlooked the potential interdependencies that may exist between these operations and the conduct of monetary policy. This is the case even under inflation targeting and especially in emerging-market economies, because central...

This paper looks at how individual preferences for the allocation of government spending change along the life cycle. Using the Life in Transition Survey II for 34 countries of Europe and Central Asia, we find that older individuals are less likely to support a rise in government outlays on...

Indonesia went through a process of fiscal decentralization in 2001 involving the devolution of several policymaking and service delivery functions to the subnational tiers of government (provinces and districts). This process is likely to have affected regional patterns of urbanization, because...

This paper tests for the existence of a lending channel in the transmission of monetary policy in Brazil using aggregate monthly data for the period 1995:12 through 2008:6. The test is carried out in a VECM setting that allows for multiple cointegrating relationships among the variable of...