Several proposals for a wholesale privatization of public enterprises in Eastern Europe are discussed. These proposals include the distribution of "vouchers" to private citizens, as well as the use of mutual funds, privatization companies, and other forms of financial intermediaries. The paper...

This paper analyzes the economic determinants of developing country creditworthiness indicators for over 60 developing countries for the period from 1980 to 1993. Our results indicate that economic fundamentals--the ratio of nongold foreign exchange reserves to imports, the ratio of the current...

Purchases under the compensatory financing facility (CFF) accounted for nearly one fourth of total credit extended by the International Monetary Fund from 1976 to 1985. To determine the extent to which the facility served its intended purpose of stabilizing foreign exchange earnings of member...

Within a broad framework for analyzing portfolio flows to developing countries, the paper undertakes a comparative analysis of equity markets in six Middle Eastern countries. The analysis, based primarily on a range of quantitative indicators, identifies the principal characteristics of these...

This paper examines factors determining the allocation of bank credit to the enterprise sector and the implications of this allocation for aggregate supply and macroeconomic performance in the former socialist economies. It first develops a model to explain how changes in demand for money by the...

An econometric investigation is undertaken into the efficiency of commodity futures markets. Despite considerable empirical literature, there is no consensus on whether or not the markets are efficient. This study suggests that for certain commodities expected excess returns to futures...

The efficiency of the crude oil futures market and the forecasting accuracy of futures prices are investigated. The accuracy of forecasts using futures prices is compared with that of forecasts using alternative techniques, including time series and econometric models and judgmental forecasts....

Vector autoregressions of real growth since 1970 are used to estimate spillovers between the United States, the euro area, Japan, and an aggregate of smaller countries proxying for global shocks. U.S. and global shocks generate significant spillovers, but those from the euro area and Japan are...

This paper examines the roles of U.S. financial innovation, financial globalization, and the savings glut hypothesis in explaining the rise in U.S. external debt, first in a portfolio balance model, and then empirically. Perhaps surprisingly, financial deepening and falling home bias in...

This paper uses vector autoregressions to examine the monetary transmission mechanism in Japan. The empirical results indicate that both monetary policy and bank's balance sheets are important sources of shocks, that banks play a crucial role in transmitting monetary shocks to economic activity,...