This paper assesses alternative auction techniques for pricing and allocating various financial instruments, such as government securities, central bank refinance credit, and foreign exchange. Before recommending appropriate formats for auctioning these items, the paper discusses basic auction...

This paper tests uncovered interest parity (UIP) using interest rates on longer maturity bonds for the Group of Seven countries. These long-horizon regressions yield much more support for UIP—all of the coefficients on interest differentials are of the correct sign, and almost all are closer...

This paper discusses the origins of the pyramid schemes and the way the authorities handled them. The paper analyzes the economic effects of the pyramid schemes, concluding that despite the descent into anarchy triggered by the schemes’ collapse, their direct effects on the economy are...

Trade liberalization in developing countries is frequently opposed on the grounds that, because it is likely to cause a deterioration in the external balance, it may not be a viable policy option for countries facing foreign exchange constraints. Recent literature suggests, however, an ambiguous...

This paper re-examines the issue of the existence of threshold effects in the relationship between inflation and growth, using new econometric techniques that provide appropriate procedures for estimation and inference. The threshold level of inflation above which inflation significantly slows...

The welfare effects of mitigating the costs of inflation are examined. In a model where money reduces transactions costs, a fall in inflation costs is equivalent to financial innovation. This can be caused by paying interest on deposits, indexing money, or “dollarizing.” Results indicate...

The Mundell-Fleming model of international macroeconomic originated in the early 1960s and has been extended during the ensuing quarter century. This paper develops an exposition that integrates the various facets of the model and incorporates its extensions into a unified analytical framework....

This paper studies the flow of primary commodity exports from non-oil exporting developing countries grouped by geographical region. The first part analyzes the changes in the structure of developing country commodity exports that have taken place over the past two decades. The second part...

Two recent criticisms of summary fiscal indicators are appraised: first, that they and the conventionally measured public sector balances from which they are derived are not sufficiently broadly defined; second, that they are meaningless because they do not reflect changes in the distribution of...

This first issue for 2006 is anchored by two papers on Russia. The opening paper discusses Russia and the World Trade Organization, and the concluding paper, by John Odling-Smee (former Director of the IMF's European II Department), presents a comprehensive and authoritative history of the IMF's...