The apparent contradiction between trade liberalization and continuing high trade tax revenue raises the important question of how, precisely, the one affects the other. Although policymakers generally recognize the long-term benefits of trade liberalization, some have argued for at least a...

This paper examines central bank independence with reference to the constraints on central bank credit to the government, focusing on how such credit should be regulated. It discusses why credit should be contsrained, and in which forms, and how to implement those constraints

This paper provides an overview of the recent revenue performance in the Baltics, Russia, and other countries of the former Soviet Union, and a survey of these countries' efforts to modify tax policy in line with the needs of increasingly market-oriented economies and to increase the...

Value-added tax, or VAT, first introduced less than 50 years ago, is now a pivotal component of tax systems around the world. The rapid and seemingly irresistible rise of the VAT is probably the most important tax development of the latter twentieth century, and certainly the most breathtaking....

During the last 25 years, monetary practice in most countries has increasingly been characterized by the attempt to achieve credibility of purpose while expanding the freedom of monetary authorities in controlling policy instruments. Thus, the world has moved toward monetary frameworks in which,...

We review the main issues that arise in the design of treasury bill auctions and survey the relevant empirical literature. We also provide a detailed description of the actual design of these auctions in a sample of 42 industrial and developing countries

Many countries, including several transition economies, have in the last few years recorded a sharp decline in inflation, but have been unable to bring inflation down to lower single digits or to achieve price stability. In these countries, inflation has stabilized at moderate levels, with...

Designing appropriate governance structures for an international financial institution such as the IMF is difficult, because steps to enhance the legitimacy of such an institution through constraints on its decision-making process may affect its operational efficiency. Potential trade-offs...

This paper explains inflation performance in a sample of industrial and transition economies by looking at policymakers’ incentives to inflate the economy, and the perceived costs of disinflation. It finds a significant effect of fiscal deficits on inflation, particularly (but not exclusively)...