Hemming, Mahfouz and Schimmelpfennig discuss the effectiveness of fiscal policy in responding to downturns in economic activity. They see this against the background of the contrast between the view that a fiscal expansion is an appropriate policy response to recessions and the experience in...

This paper reviews Lebanon's ability to manage financial pressures following severe shocks despite its large public debt overhang and significant external vulnerabilities. Based on interviews with market participants in Beirut and London, the paper concludes that Lebanon's ability to weather...

This paper examines the relative importance of monetary factors and structuralist supply-side factors for inflation in Pakistan. A stylized inflation model is specified that includes standard monetary variables (money supply, credit to the private sector), the exchange rate, as well as the wheat...

This paper presents three empirical approaches to forecasting inflation in Pakistan. The preferred approach is a leading indicators model in which broad money growth and private sector credit growth help forecast inflation. A univariate approach also yields reasonable forecasts, but seems less...

We develop an early-warning model of sovereign debt crises. A country is defined to be in a debt crisis if it is classified as being in default by Standard amp; Poor's, or if it has access to nonconcessional IMF financing in excess of 100 percent of quota. By means of logit and binary recursive...