Sustaining a high rate of economic growth is the major policy issue facing the Arab economies. A detailed analysis of growth, investment, and savings for the period 1971-96, including through a growth accounting exercise, shows that increasing long-run growth requires improvements in both...

Recent financial crises have highlighted the potentially significant macroeconomic costs of financial system instability, and the potential for the instability in the financial system of one country to have broader implications for the stability of financial systems and macroeconomic performance...

The terrorist attacks that have occurred in the past few years around the world have raised international awareness of the danger of terrorism and its complex repercussions on the financial markets. This paper explores the ways in which financial markets reacted to the attacks and the...

This paper examines the role of long-run monetary and cyclical factors in determining exchange rate movements. Results of empirical study using a data set that includes Canada, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States support the view that exchange rate movements can be...

Recourse to controls on capital flows among developing economies is generally quite pervasive. This paper examines the structure and determinants of capital controls based on a cross-sectional study of developing and transition economies. It identifies categories of capital transactions that can...

This paper examines issues in sequencing and pacing capital account liberalization and draws lessons from experience in four countries (Chile, Indonesia, Korea, and Thailand). The paper focuses on the interrelationship between capital account liberalization, domestic financial sector reforms,...

This paper reports research on the impact of controls on capital movements on the private capital accounts of countries’ balance of payments using data drawn from 52 countries for the period 1985-92. The results indicate that: (1) capital controls operated by developing countries have not been...

This paper analyzes the different channels through which financial variables and financial sector reform can affect economic growth and efficiency, using panel data for 40 countries which reformed their financial systems. Financial sector reform is hypothesized to affect economic growth and...

This paper underscores the importance of the assessment of incentives of the main agents in a financial system as a key element in the analysis of financial system vulnerability and the surveillance over the financial system. We outline a diagnostic approach for the assessment of incentives....