If not carefully planned, the transition to indirect monetary policy instruments may result in a loss of control. The 1967-71 attempt in France failed because of a misconceived instrument-mix and sequencing. Credit controls, reintroduced in 1972, were only formally abolished in 1987. This paper...

Using annual data for Colombia over the last thirty years and a new battery of econometric techniques, we test opposing theories that explain macroeconomic fluctuations: The neoclassical synthesis, which posits that, in the presence of temporary price rigidity, an unanticipated monetary...

Reserve requirements are widely used by central banks as a means to improve monetary control, an instrument for policy implementation, a source of revenue, and a safeguard of bank liquidity. The effectiveness of reserve requirements in fulfilling these functions is reviewed, and the detailed...

The choice of assigning monetary or fiscal policy to external balance is complicated when the authorities are concerned with both the current account balance and the exchange rate. A strategy of using monetary policy to control the current account via the exchange rate may fail, because the...

Yugoslav inflation unfolded as a classic wage-price-exchange rate spiral through the 1970s and 1980s and exploded into hyperinflation in the last quarter of 1989. This paper examines the process of monetary accommodation of inflation, the behavior of demand for money, and the interaction between...

The paper argues that the endogenous behavior of monetary authorities provides an important channel through which fiscal policy influences financial variables, and that growing internationalization has increased the sensitivity of financial conditions to fiscal policy. The core of the argument...

The introduction of a new currency has often occurred as part of a program to fight hyperinflation. In this context, non-uniform conversion rates for different types of assets and liabilities have been used as a means of reducing an initial “excess” stock of liquidity. The paper examines the...

This paper develops a structural macroeconometric model of the world economy, disaggregated into thirty five national economies. This panel unobserved components model features a monetary transmission mechanism, a fiscal transmission mechanism, and extensive macrofinancial linkages, both within...

This paper surveys the economic literature on the scaling-up of aid to Africa. It provides a checklist of issues that need to be considered when preparing a long term macroeconomic projection for a country involving the assumption of a significant increase in aid. Such scaling-up scenarios are...

This paper evaluates ways to protect highly dollarized banking systems from systemic liquidity runs (such as the ones that took place recently in Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay). In view of the limitations of available (private or official) insurance schemes, and the distortions introduced by...