This paper investigates the East African Community (EAC) partner states' readiness for a common currency. It uses recent data to assess the impact of policy coordination in the region during the last seven years of East African Monetary Union's protocol implementation. Despite some similarities...

In this paper, we investigate how economic, political and institutional factors affect the choice of exchange rate regimes, using data on eight MENA (Middle East and North Africa) countries over the 1984-2016 period. Specifically, we run random-effects ordered probit regressions of the...

We focus on the role that the transmission of information between a multilateral (the IMF) and a country has for the optimal design of conditional reforms. Our model predicts that when agency problems are especially severe, and/or IMF information is valuable, a centralized control is indeed...

This research note discusses the Euro crisis in Greece in light of the referendum of July the 5th. It lays out the social and political costs of a GREXIT, but also of a continuing austerity policy. It proposes a reform policy fostering growth in Greece and discusses the role of conditionality....

We focus on the role that the transmission of information between a multilateral (the IMF) and a country has for the optimal design of conditional reforms. Our model predicts that when agency problems are especially severe, and/or IMF information is valuable, a centralized control is indeed...

This paper analyzes the potential advantages and disadvantages of the introduction of the common European currency for the German labor market. First, experiences of the German currency union of 1990 cannot be transferred to the European case. Second, the loss of the instrument of nominal...

Using the Reserve Bank of Australia's MARTIN model we compare actual monetary policy decisions to a counterfactual in which the cash rate is set according to an optimal simple rule. We find that monetary policy played a crucial role in avoiding a potential recession in 2001 and mitigating the...

What are the broad societal implications of inflation and unemployment? Analyzing a dataset of over 1.9 million individuals from 156 countries via the Gallup World Poll spanning 2005 to 2021, alongside macroeconomic data at the national level, we find that both inflation and unemployment have a...

Real wages are a key determinant of marginal costs. The latter themselves are a driving force of inflation. We ask how wages and labor market shocks feed into the inflation process. We model search and matching frictions in the labour market in an otherwise standard New-Keynesian closed economy...

This paper provides an overview of the complex conceptual and practical challenges that emerging market economies face as they attempt to reform their frameworks for financial regulation. These economies are striving to balance the quest for financial stability with the imperatives of financial...