The Chilean pension reform of 1981, a shift from cm unfunded to a funded scheme, is considered to have contributed to this country’s excellent economic performance. Positive growth effects allow, in principle, a Pareto-improving shift in pension financing. This paper highlights the theoretical...

In this issue, a team of economists look at approaches to modeling the use of IMF resources in order to gauge whether the recent decline in credit outstanding is a temporary or permanent phenomenon. Era Dabla-Norris and Gabriela Inchauste examine what drives the growth of firms, with a focus on...

This paper analyzes portfolio diversification, leverage, and financial contagion. It studies the extent to which basic principles of portfolio diversification explain “contagious selling” of financial assets when there are purely local shocks. The paper demonstrates that the elementary...

This last issue for 2005 comprises seven new papers, including a contribution to the journal's occasional Special Data Section about domestic debt markets in Sub-Saharan Africa, and also an in-depth look at the internal job market for entry-level economists at the IMF. The remaining articles...

This is the final issue for 2006 (Volume 53), and contains another paper in the occasional Special Data Section that seeks to measure financial development in the Middle East and North Africa by utilizing a new database. The issue also contains a comment from Jacques J. Polak on parity reversion...

This paper presents views of Professor Robert Triffin on international liquidity and the role of the IMF. The paper is an exposition of Triffin's diagnosis of present and prospective difficulties in the international financial area and of his prescriptions for dealing with these difficulties. It...

This paper is an attempt to examine several theories about the dynamics of exchange rate adjustment. All the models start from the premise that exchange rates are determined by the balancing of supply and demand for each currency and that expectations play a prime role in determining demand. The...

This paper highlights various problems and policies related to latent inflation. Disappointment will undoubtedly be widespread if, after 10 years of inflation control, latent inflation is permitted to become active and there is a considerable rise in prices. It is not unlikely that some...

This paper focuses on various aspects of inflation in Latin America. Among short-run factors, World War II considerably affected the balance of payments of Latin American countries and thus indirectly their inflationary situation. Inflation in a greater or less degree has long been...

This paper reports the unfinished business of the 1974 Report to the Board of Governors on Reform of the International Monetary System on the question of the Special Drawing Right (SDR) as a basket of currencies. The SDR basket was revised after an initial period of four years and is subject to...