Recent literature on optimum currency areas has emphasized the importance of analysing the nature of the shocks facing the economy when deciding among alternative exchange rate regimes. In this paper we use a structural VAR to model the joint behaviour of real output, nominal interest rates,...

This article explores the hypothesis that the propensity to consume out of income varies in a nonlinear fashion with fiscal variables, and in particular with government debt per capita. Using panel data from 18 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, we examine...

This article finds that education and health spending has risen during International Monetary Fund (IMF)-supported programmes at a faster pace than in developing countries as a whole. The analysis is based on the most comprehensive dataset assembled thus far for this purpose, with data covering...