The staff report for the 2005 Article IV Consultation for Chile highlights short-term economic outlook and fiscal policy under the structural surplus rule. The government is firmly committed to the structural surplus rule. The core inflation rate has risen, reflecting the gradual closing of the...

Movements in global capital during the late 1990s and the greater emphasis on price stability led many countries to abandon fixed exchange rate regimes and to design institutions and monetary policies to achieve credibility in the goal of lowering inflation. Such recent developments have brought...

This paper uses vector autoregressions and impulse-response functions to construct a U.S. financial conditions index (FCI). Credit availability—proxied by survey results on lending standards—is an important driver of the business cycle, accounting for over 20 percent of the typical...

In economies in transition, the development of financial markets is a common objective linking the monetary and fiscal authorities, while monetary and public debt management cannot be strictly separated. This calls for close coordination of objectives and instruments of monetary and debt...

This paper consolidates previous work on the development of secondary markets for government securities, and focuses on the sequencing of measures necessary for their development. Six main lessons are identified: (i) a commitment to achieving and maintaining a stable macroeconomic environment,...

This paper presents a basic plan for developing a Forecast and Policy Analysis System designed to support an inflation-forecast targeting regime at a central bank. It includes discussion of the development of data management and reporting processes; the creation of a forecast team and the...

The question of how India should adapt monetary policy to ongoing financial globalization has gained prominence with the recent surge in capital inflows. This paper documents the degree to which India has become financially globalized, both in absolute terms and relative to emerging and...

How should a central bank organize itself to produce the best possible inflation forecast? This paper discusses elements for building a comprehensive platform for an inflation forecasting framework. It describes the exercise of forecasting inflation as a production process, which induces a...

The large holdings of government securities by banks in India draw attention to their risk as interest rates are at historical low levels. This paper measures such a risk using duration and value-at-risk methods and assesses its current management by banks. The main finding is that some public...

This paper identifies issues to consider when designing the structure, size, and composition of the governing boards and management of a central bank. While central bank autonomy and accountability are generally accepted as good practice, there is less consensus regarding the structure, size,...