Assessing the magnitude of the output gap is critical to achieving an optimal policy mix. Unfortunately, the gap is an unobservable variable, which, in practice, has been estimated in a variety of ways, depending on the preferences of the modeler. This model selection problem leads to a...

A push-pull-brake model of capital flows is used to study the effects of fiscal policy changes on private capital flows to emerging Europe during 2000-07. In the model, countercyclical fiscal policy has two opposing effects on capital inflows: (i) a conventional absorption-reducing effect, as a...

This paper analyzes common economic patterns across countries and economic sectors in Latin America, East Asia and Europe for the period 1970-94 by means of an error-components model that decomposes real value added growth in each country into common international effects, sector-specific...