Japan’s experience shows that very negative circumstances are required for a country to suffer from protracted deflation. The comparison of Japan’s developments in the last few years with those of the US points to large differences, which suggest that the risk of deflation in the US is low....

This paper assesses financial sector development in Latin America, both in the banking system and in the capital markets. After a brief review of the explanatory factors and the definitions of financial development found in the literature, Latin American countries are classified in groups of...

After a brief review of the literature on the determinants of financial development, the paper reviews the Asian and European financial systems in terms of their size and efficiency. It also compares the steps taken in the two regions in the quest for financial development and stability, which...

This paper is a contribution to the literature on the factors behind financial stability, focusing on monetary policy design. In particular, it assesses empirically for a sample of 79 countries in the period 1970 to 2000 whether the choice of the central bank objectives and the monetary policy...

We construct a new measure of financial development, through multivariate analysis, which includes several indicators of financial size and efficiency for 134 countries. Based on this broad measure, we assess empirically the determinants of financial development focusing on two factors not yet...

This paper presents a model where agents decide on the timing of replacement of ageing machines. The optimal replacement policy for an agent is influenced by other agents' decisions because the productivity of a particular vintage displays network externalities that set in with a lag. In...

This paper analyzes the incentives for governments to impose export subsidies when firms invest in a cost saving technology before market competition. Governments first impose an export subsidy or a tax. After observing export policy, firms invest in cost reducing R&D and subsequently compete in...

This paper studies steady-state, Markov-Perfect strategic trade policy when (infinitely lived) governments are committed to trade policy during two periods. We compare the case in which both governments choose their export subsidies in the same periods (synchronization) versus the case in which...

We study the effect of market structure upon international trade policy when firms invest in process R&D before competing in a differentiated goods market. For a domestic monopoly, and increasing the number of foreign firms, the government either chooses a R&D (and output) subsidy, or remains...

Models of durable goods with network externalities that set instantaneously have emphasized that a monopolist selling those goods has too high an incentive to introduce new vintages of the durable good, to make previous vintages (already bought by consumers) obsolete. This is referred to as...