Over the recent decades researchers in academia and central banks have developed early warning systems (EWS) designed to warn policy makers of potential future economic and financial crises. These EWS are based on diverse approaches and empirical models. In this paper we compare the performance...

The International Monetary Fund has significantly improved its surveillance of the EU and the euro area, along the lines suggested by the Fund's 2011 Triennial Surveillance Review and in application of its 2012 Integrated Surveillance Decision. Nonetheless, there is still margin for further...

This paper reviews financial stability challenges in the EU candidate countries: Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Turkey. It follows a macro-prudential approach, emphasising systemic risks and the stability of financial systems as a whole. The paper recalls that the...

Informal employment is a reality for roughly two-thirds of economically active youth in urban Egypt, and it has been argued to be correlated with poverty, poor working conditions, and few opportunities for advancement. This essay analyzes whether informal employment rewards job qualification...

Inequality has been largely ignored in the literature and practice of monetary policy, but is gaining more attention recently. We look at how a decade of unconventional monetary policy (UMP) in Japan affected inequality among households using survey data. Our vector auto regression (VAR) results...

Over the recent decades researchers in academia and central banks have developed early warning systems (EWS) designed to warn policy makers of potential future economic and financial crises. These EWS are based on diverse approaches and empirical models. In this paper we compare the performance...

The paper explores whether financial openness—capital account openness and gross capital inflows—makes countries vulnerable to currency crises. A quarterly dataset on 46 advanced and emerging market economies (AEs and EMEs) during 1975Q1–2011Q4 is used, with the period after Q2 2007 used...