Issues of inflation measurement are fundamental to the conduct of monetary policy. Price indices form the foundation of central bank policy frameworks around the world. They serve as guides to decision-making, as well as providing the primary mechanism for holding independent policymakers...

The paper examines if the seven South Asian countries satisfy the criteria to form an optimal currency area. The empirical part of the paper reveals some positive attributes (such as the existence of positive shocks for major economies like India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka). The paper provides...

The debate on outsourcing of skilled jobs to India has recently picked up steam and has become a hot election-year issue. Bills put forth in almost twenty five states have provisions that seek to limit the outsourcing trend. This paper visits some issues concerning outsourcing in order to...

Currency crises that have been observed in recent years are not a new phenomenon, but the main features of the crises in Latin America in the 1970s and early 1980s are quite different from the crisis in Europe in 1992. Theoretical literature has evolved over time to account for the changing...

This paper estimates the equilibirum level of the real exchange rate for Indonesia in order to measure the extent of overvaluation of the rupiah at the time of the Asian crisis in 1997. The equilibrium level of the real exchange rate is measured using cointegration approach, unobserved component...

The decade of the 1990s witnessed currency crises in all parts of the world - in Europe in 1992/2, in Latin America in 1994/5, in Asia in 1997/8 and in Russia and Brazil in 1998. The large economic costs resulting from the severe depreciation of the currencies in various episodes and general...

This paper is a pioneering attempt to include India with east and Southeast Asia to study the existence of the economic criteria for a common currency. The analysis in this paper shows that significant complementarities in trade exist among these countries, most of them experience similar shocks...