Croatia achieved progress in restoring control over the public finances. Executive Directors welcomed the comprehensive economic program, with its focus on the fiscal deficit and tax reductions, wage discipline, and structural reforms in the context of a stable exchange rate. They stressed the...

This paper develops a simple model of foreign debt portfolio management. The model suggests that, under mild conditions, the currency composition of a country's foreign debt portfolio is responsive to exchange rate movements. Empirical evidence is provided for a panel of 14 emerging economies in...

This paper addresses the important question of how far a government will run down its stock of foreign reserves in a defense of a fixed exchange rate. An optimizing model of currency crisis is presented in which the decision of whether or not to borrow in a defense of a peg is explicitly...

This paper evaluates several indicators of external vulnerability and estimates the equilibrium real exchange rate for Costa Rica. While current indicators are mostly positive, declining market shares of domestic exports, the expected decline in foreign direct investment, and the desirability of...

Most developing countries have imposed restrictions on domestic and international financial transactions at one time or another. Such restrictions have allowed governments to generate significant proportions of their revenues from financial repression while restraining inflation. The eventual...

This paper shows that the quality of banks within each country is one of the important factors that can account for the fact that developing economies tend to suffer more severe output contractions in the wake of a currency crisis than more mature economies. In particular, countries with a...

This paper reviews central banks’ legal reform in Latin America during the 1990s and discusses the status of central bank independence in the region. Based on this information, it builds a simplified index of central bank independence which, in addition to the commonly used criteria of...

The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is faced with the task of stabilizing and reviving a devastated economy after years of military conflicts, sanctions, and economic mismanagement. A weakened institutional capacity and the still evolving political situation is a cause for concern. A short-term...

The study focuses on corrective fiscal policies for 2000, the budgets for 2001, and the agenda for structural reform. An important issue discussed in revising the 2000 budgets was the expenditure policy required to contain spending commitments within available resources. The authorities have...

The statistical data on national accounts, origin of gross domestic product, financing of investment, composition of fixed capital formation, statistics on selected agricultural products, labor force by sector, consolidated operations of the non financial public sector, and central government...