This paper proposes an integrated and risk-based approach to the sequencing and coordination of reforms to develop domestic financial markets. The paper argues that there is a hierarchy of financial markets that reflects the complexity of risks in each market and the interlinkages among markets....

This paper calibrates the production functions of 176 countries to fit 2003 data and examines the capital flows that emerge, when labor forces change according to the 2007 UN population projections. It finds that demographic factors are no help in correcting today's global imbalances; that...

We explore the underlying determinants of the macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy and tax and social security reform using the Global Fiscal Model (GFM). We show that the planning horizon of consumers, access to financial markets, and the elasticity of labor supply, as well as the...

We question the conventional view that it is optimal for government to maintain a stable level of spending out of oil wealth. We compare this conventional policy recommendation with one where government spends all of its oil revenues upfront, at the same rate as oil is extracted. Using a...

This paper uses the standard one-sector neoclassical growth model to investigate why China's consumption has been low and investment high. It finds that the low cost of capital has been quantitatively an important factor. Theory predicts that the price of capital may have been significantly...

The paper develops a tractable way to incorporate the micro structure of dual models of international trade into a standard class of dynamic open-economy macro models. In the process, it develops the concept of a dynamic factor price equalization set and an integrated intertemporal equilibrium....

This paper gauges the key determinants of China's private consumption in relation to GDP using data on the Chinese economy and evidence from other countries' experiences. The results suggest there is nothing "special" about consumption in China. Rather, the challenge is to explain why the...

In the fiscal reforms undertaken throughout the last decade, the dual income tax system, based on a broadened concept of income and progressive tax rates, has been implanted in several countries as an alternative model to traditional tax systems. The dual tax is characterised by combining a...

This Selected Issues paper on Germany reviews investment trends and business capital stock in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Sharp wage increases are found to boost capital formation in the short term as employers substitute capital for labor at a...

Recent years have witnessed a change in the composition of capital flows to developing countries, and FDI and equity flows have been playing an increasing role. In this paper we discuss the challenges for international macroeconomics that these developments pose and characterize stylized facts...