This study examines the relationship between the foreign exchange regime and macroeconomic performance in Eastern Africa. The study focuses on seven countries, five of which decisively liberalized their foreign exchange regimes. The study assesses the relationship between (i) growth and various...

Rodriguez and Rodrik (2000) argue that the relation between openness and growth is still an open question. One of the main problems in the assessment of the effect is the endogeneity of the relation. In order to address this issue, this paper applies the identification through heteroskedasticity...

The paper investigates the divergence between inflation and monetary expansion in Zimbabwe since late 2003. The substantial decline in velocity and increasing levels of real money balances during 2004 are at odds with a record of inflation closely tracking the growth rates of monetary aggregates...

This paper reviews the main policy and analytical issues related to currency substitution in developing countries. The paper discusses, first, whether currency substitution should be encouraged or not; second, how the presence of currency substitution affects the choice of nominal anchors in...

Using recent advances in the classification of exchange rate regimes, this paper finds no support for the popular bipolar view that countries will tend over time to move to the polar extremes of free float or rigid peg. Rather, intermediate regimes have shown remarkable durability. The analysis...

This paper assesses the benefits and risks associated with dollarization of the banking system. We provide novel empirical evidence on the determinants of dollarization, its role in promoting financial development, and on whether dollarization is associated with financial instability. We find...

This paper investigates the determinants of inflation in the Dominican Republic during 1991-2002, a period characterized by remarkable macroeconomic stability and growth. By developing a parsimonious and empirically stable error-correction model using quarterly observations, the paper finds that...

This study examines the effects of selected policies on economic efficiency in 81 developing countries by pooling cross-country data over various subperiods between 1961-90. An incremental output-capital ratio is the measure of economic efficiency, while the policy variables include: export...

This paper shows that there is a long-run relationship between the expected rate of depreciation in the black-market-exchange rate and the ratio of domestic to foreign money in Peru; that is, the hypothesis of currency substitution can explain the behavior of real holdings of money in Peru. The...

Numerous reports have noted that the IMF's medium-term growth projections are overly optimistic, raising questions as to how these can be improved. To this end, we estimate a growth model and examine its out-of-sample forecasting properties relative to those of IMF projections. The model's...