Macroeconometric models have proven to be a useful tool in analyzing the economy-wide or sector-specific effects of policy measures. Simulations using these models have enabled planners and policymakers to trace through the effects of proposed policy changes or external shocks as well as...

Regional development policy and practice took significant transformations over the last five decades. Its relevance has been challenged in recent years by the new economic geography that emerged in view of globalization and as most nations veer towards a more democratic and decentralized...

This paper aims to analyze how contracts are determined and modified given diverse agricultural settings and to examine the implications of these changes with respect to their efficiency, distribution, and sustainability. The contract model presented here differs from previous contract models as...

Benefit incidence analysis (BIA) is a tool used to assess how tax policy or government subsidy affects the distribution of welfare in the population. In other words, it evaluates the distribution of government subsidies among different groups in the population, in particular, among different...

The paper analyses the impact of financial liberalization and reform in emerging markets on the dynamics of capital flows to these markets, using a simple model of international investors' behaviour. We first show that the gradual nature of liberalization, combined with the cost of absorbing...

The recent East Asian crisis has highlighted the relationship between financial development and output volatility. In this essay we develop a simple model of a small open economy producing a tradeable good using a non-tradeable input and where firms access to borrowings and investment depends on...

We develop a simple general equilibrium framework to study the effect of the exchange rate system on trade and welfare. An important feature of the model is deviations from purchasing power parity, caused by rigid price setting in buyers' currency. We find the following. First, exchange rate...

This paper introduces a framework for analyzing the role of financial factors as a source of instability in small open economies. Our basic model is a dynamic open economy model with one tradeable and one non-tradeable good with the non-tradeable being an input to the production of the...

This paper analyzes the optimal interest rate policy in currency crises. Firms are credit constrained and have debt in domestic and foreign currency, a situation that may easily lead to a currency crisis. An interest rate increase has an ambiguous effect on firms since it both makes more...

Over the past decade several countries, including the US, have introduced or redesigned legislation that confers priority in bankruptcy upon all or some bank deposits. We argue that in the presence of contracting costs such rules can increase efficiency. We first show in a private information...