Regional and bilateral liquidity arrangements have gained increasing prominence over the past decades, not least during the recent global financial crisis. This has important consequences for the role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a crisis lender and raises questions regarding the...

This article uses automatic model selection procedures, based on the general-to-speci fic approach, to investigate inflation in China. A novelty of this article is the use of a technique called impulse indicator saturation which allows us to uncover instabilities and to specify a very general...

Against the backdrop of the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) increasing focus on crisis prevention measures and the G20's discussion of “global safety nets”, this paper analyses the IMF's tools for crisis prevention, with particular emphasis on the recently developed Flexible Credit Line...

The rapid increase in global liquidity and the large-scale net capital flows to emerging countries have raised serious concerns about adverse effects on the recipient countries; these include the danger of overheating, exchange rate appreciation pressures, inflationary pressure on consumer and...

We examine the regional and global growth effects of current account imbalances in Japan, Germany, and the People's Republic of China (PRC)—the three largest persistent surplus countries—and the United States and United Kingdom, the two largest persistent deficit countries. Controlling for a...

This paper evaluates the arguments for regional monetary cooperation in East Asia. Unlike in Europe, which saw longstanding discussions on the costs and benefits of monetary unification, a proper debate is not yet underway in East Asia. Instead, the quot;classicalquot; European arguments for and...

This paper explores the degree of financial market integration between the new and old EU member states. It also considers the likely effects of the ongoing integration process on the new members' financial sectors. In particular, the paper discusses the implications of the high concentration of...

In many developing and emerging economies, central banks have begun over the past decade to place renewed emphasis on the promotion of economic development and structural transformation, looking beyond narrow mandates for macroeconomic stability. Developmental central bank policies have included...