This paper examines the extent to which the observed diversity of private deposit interest rates in Russia is explained by bank financial indicators. We also test for whether the introduction of the bank deposit insurance scheme in 2005 affected deposit interest rates. Our results suggest market...

Currency substitution, the use of foreign money to finance transactions between domestic residents, is a common feature of emerging market economies. Currency substitution re-duces the stability of money demand functions in ways that can seriously undermine cen-tral bank credibility and its...

In this paper we explore the evidence that would establish that Dutch disease is at work in, or poses a threat to, the Kazakh economy. Assessing the mechanism by which fluctuations in the price of oil can damage non-oil manufacturing—and thus long-term growth prospects in an economy that...

This paper estimates switching autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (SWARCH) time series models for weekly returns of nine Asian forward exchange rates. We find two regimes with different volatility levels, whereby each regime displays considerable persistence. Our analysis provides...

In this paper, we assess whether recent economic developments in Russia are symptomatic of Dutch Disease. We first provide a brief review of the literature on Dutch Disease and the natural resource curse. We then discuss the symptoms of Dutch Disease, which include (1) real exchange rate...

This paper reviews recent regulatory and policy changes that affect the Chinese central government's ownership and authority over the capital allocations of strategic state-owned enterprises (SOE). The paper examines the reform of the central government's relationship with key SOEs as a...

Russian industrial enterprises inherited from the Soviet era a tradition of producing welfare and infrastructure services within the firm, also for outside users. Despite the massive restructuring of the economy that took place since, many firms are still active in service provision. At the same...

Why are socially beneficial reforms not implemented? One simple answer to this question (which has received little attention in the literature) is that this may be caused by generalised uncertainty about the effectiveness of reforms. If agents are unsure about whether a proposed reform will...

We assess the determinants of equilibrium real exchange rates in a sample of oil-dependent countries. Our basic data cover OPEC countries from 1975 to 2005. We also include three oil-producing Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries in our robustness analysis. Utilising several...

We consider the likely economic impact and prospects for monetary integration among Belarus, Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation and Ukraine as part of the Single Economic Space they have agreed to set up. A monetary union among these countries poses three interesting issues for the structure and...