This paper looks at three countries that have been hard-hit by the world economic recession, and have turned to the IMF for assistance: Hungary, Latvia, and Ukraine. In all of these countries, it would appear that there were more sensible responses to the crisis that would reduce the loss of...

A number of economists, following Professor Hans-Werner SINN, President of the Munich Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (Ifo), have opened a debate on the true significance and the risks entailed by the system of compensation operating within the Eurozone, TARGET2 (Trans-European Automated...

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.

This paper shows that, in spite of a reasonably sized fiscal stimulus package, Costa Rica’s economy continues on a downward path, partly because fiscal policy is being offset by a tightening of monetary policy. The paper notes that the International Monetary Fund has insisted that Costa...

We present a stylized framework which encompasses a variety of balance sheet approaches to currency crises that have been suggested in the literature, and analyze their policy implications. The common theme is that currency and maturity mismatches in private sector balance sheets constrain the...

Using data collected from pan-African banks' (PABs), balance sheets and other sources (Orbis, Fitch), this study identifies some key patterns of cross-border investment in bank subsidiaries by key banking groups in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and discusses some of the determinants of this...

Although the sovereign debt crisis is worldwide considered as a main disorder affecting indebted countries' economic recovery, its analysis is still incomplete and has so far failed to provide a satisfactory explanation of its origin and of the way it can be successfully addressed. The aim of...

We model a typical Asian-crisis-economy using dynamic general equilibrium tech-niques. Exchange rates obtain from nontrivial fiat-currencies demands. Sudden stops/bank-panics are possible, and key for evaluating the merits of alternative ex-change rate regimes. Strategic complementarities...

This paper studies the determinants of repeated use of Fund-supported programs in a large sample covering virtually all General Resources Account (GRA) arrangements that were approved between 1952 and 2012. Generally, the revolving nature of the IMF's resources calls for the temporary sup-port...

This paper extends the work of Kaminsky and Schmukler (2003) to the Baltic and Central Eastern European future Member States of the European Union, to test if the same short-run increase in cyclical volatility arising from financial integration is observed in this specific sample of ?emerging...