We propose a coherent unified approach to the study of the linkages among economic growth, financial structure, and inequality, bringing together disparate theoretical and empirical literature. That is, we show how to conduct model-based quantitative research on transitional paths. With...

The First Millennium Development Goal (MDG#1) is to cut the fraction of global population living on less than one dollar per day in half, by 2015. Foreign aid financed investments may contribute to the attainment of this goal. But how much can aid be reasonably expected to accomplish? A...

This paper presents two approaches to modeling the use of IMF resources in order to gauge whether the recent decline in credit outstanding is a temporary or a permanent phenomenon. The two approaches-the time series behavior of credit outstanding and a two-stage program selection and access...

This paper studies stylized business cycle properties of household production in four industrialized countries (Canada, the United States, Germany, and Japan). We employ a dynamic small open economy business cycle model that incorporates a household production sector. We use the model to...

In weak intellectual property rights (IPR) environments, the imitation of proprietary technology by domestic firms has become a deterrent for foreign investment. Different multinationals may view this deterrent differently. This paper develops a model where firms with more technology are less...

This paper reviews recent advances in the specification and estimation of Bayesian Vector Autoregressive models (BVARs). After describing the Bayesian principle of estimation, we first present the methodology originally developed by Litterman (1986) and Doan et al. (1984) and review alternative...

The IMF's Consultative Group on Exchange Rate issues (CGER) has been conducting exchange rate assessments as part of the surveillance process since 1997. This paper evaluates CGER assessments from 1997 to 2006, by comparing these to subsequent movements in real effective exchange rates (REER)....

Index number theory informs us that if data on matched prices and quantities are available, a superlative index number formula is best to aggregate heterogeneous items, and a unit value index to aggregate homogeneous ones. The formulas can give very different results. Neglected is the practical...

This paper assesses the extent to which crashes in emerging market currencies are predictable using simple logit models based on lagged macroeconomic and financial data. To evaluate our model, we calculate trading strategies in which an investor goes long or short in the currency depending on...

There is strong evidence that interest rates and bond yield movements exhibit both stochastic volatility and unanticipated jumps. The presence of frequent jumps makes it natural to ask whether there is a premium for jump risk embedded in observed bond yields. This paper identifies a class of...