The desirability of fiscal constraints in monetary unions depends critically on whether the monetary authority can commit to follow its policies. If it can commit, then debt constraints can only impose costs. If it cannot commit, then fiscal policy has a free-rider problem, and debt constraints...

Certain growth-promoting policies can have negative side-effects by increasing the vulnerability of economies to financial crises. Typical examples are greater openness to financial flows or more liberalised financial markets. This paper investigates whether the growth benefits of policy reforms...

The objective of future Basel III regulations is to improve the capacity of the banking sector to absorb economic and financial shocks, from whatever source, while reducing the risk of contagion in the financial sector to the real economy. One of the main reasons that the economic and financial...

We explore the governance structure of the International Monetary Fund, wherein voting power is explicitly tied to the size of member countries' financial contributions, known as quotas. By virtue of their large quotas, rich countries have the preponderance of voting power while developing...

We provide an overview of the recent developments of the literature on the determinants of long-term capital flows, global imbalances, and valuation effects. We present the main stylized facts of the new international financial landscape in which external balance sheets of countries have grown...

This paper looks at the planned austerity measures in Spain, the rationale for the spending cuts and tax increases, likely outcomes for future debt-to-GDP ratios, and the probable results of alternative policies.

We present a new empirical decomposition of the effects of financial liberalization on economic growth and on the incidence of crises. Our empirical estimates show that the direct effect of financial liberalization on growth by far outweighs the indirect effect via a higher propensity to crisis....

Abstract. The decisions in the cohesion policy have a significant impact upon the offer and supply, in a way that, under the influence of the multipliers, they constantly reconfigure the components of the internal consumption (such as investments, private consumption and imports), and the...

This is the 2007 Edition of the only book in print in the world about the Single Global Currency, and is the only book in the world priced in 143 currencies (down from 147 in the 2006 edition.).This number is significant, as it's the number of currencies required among the 192 U.N. members to...

We provide an overview of the recent developments of the literature on the determinants of long term capital flows, global imbalances and valuation effects. We present the main stylized facts of the new international financial landscape in which external balance sheets of countries have grown in...