Thus, neither the total supply nor the total demand for reserves is likely to change dramatically. There is no compelling argument for an SDR allocation to avert a pending global liquidity shortage or to remove an intrinsic instability in the reserve-supply process. There is a consistent...

It has been suggested that Mexican investors were the "front-runners" in the peso crisis of December 1994, turning pessimistic before international investors. Different expectations about their own economy, perhaps due to asymmetric information, prompted Mexican investors to be the first ones to...

The paper reviews the grounds for fears that foreign exchange markets are not behaving as well as they should: recent misalignments and crises, and seven sets of academic findings. (1) Exchange rate volatility is high, (2) with possible adverse effects. (3) Volatility cannot be explained by...

In this paper we start by noting that policies that help growth by improving allocational efficiency may also help the poor. We then go on to consider cases where in view of serious agency costs and coordination problems (particularly involving processes in credit and insurance markets) there...

In this paper we start with a discussion of some of the different denotations of the problem of corruption. We then consider the ways in which the damaging consequences of corruption operate in the economy, while not ignoring its possible redeeming features in some cases. We pursue the question...