The financial crisis showed, once again, that neglecting real estate booms can have disastrous consequences. In this paper, we spell out the circumstances under which a more active policy agenda on this front would be justified. Then, we offer insights on the pros and cons as well as...

This paper analyzes the process of monetary integration of the New Member States in the European Union till the beginning of the Euro Area debt crisis. The focus of investigation is on the nominal convergence (the fulfillment of the Maastricht criteria) and on the satisfaction of the Optimum...

Economic historians explaining the divergent economic path in North and South America over time focus on the post-independence period in the former British or Spanish colonies. Their institutional explanation for Latin American economic backwardness is anchored in the political disorder that...

The paper considers Keynes’s major contributions before "The General Theory", namely "A Tract on Monetary Reform" and "A Treatise on Money", and shows that they were close to the views which Friedman would later develop. However, "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money"...

There is a myth underlying neoclassical economic analysis of a ‘Western’ economy, which is that in anything but the relatively short run, defined as the length of a business cycle, the economy reaches an equilibrium position determined entirely by supply side factors and unaffected by...

Remarks at the American Economic Association 2014 Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

In this paper, we study the optimal mix of monetary and macroprudential policies in an estimated two-country model of the euro area. The model includes real, nominal and financial frictions, and hence both monetary and macroprudential policy can play a role. We find that the introduction of a...

Staff Discussion Notes showcase the latest policy-related analysis and research being developed by individual IMF staff and are published to elicit comment and to further debate. These papers are generally brief and written in nontechnical language, and so are aimed at a broad audience...