Following gains during the 1990s, Canadafs global market share of goods exports has declined markedly in recent years. In this regard, the constant market share analysis framework is used to decompose changes in Canadafs global market share into competitiveness and structural effects over the...

The forecast of world economic growth plays a key role in the conduct of Canadian monetary policy. In this context, the authors study the usefulness of the monthly Purchasing Managers’ Indexes (PMIs) in predicting short-term real GDP growth in the euro area, Japan, the United Kingdom, and...

This, the first book in the Global Development Network series, brings together the views of researchers from the developing and developed world and provides models of successful research conducted in developing and transition countries.

This paper analyzes the short-run dynamic process of inflation in Canada and examines whether a systematic variation in the relationship between inflation and output can be detected over time. In the theoretical literature, different models of price-setting behaviour predict that the slope of...

In this paper, the authors survey some of the recent techniques proposed in the literature to measure the trend component of output or potential output. Given the reported shortcomings of mechanical filters and univariate approaches to estimate potential output, the paper focusses on three...

There are plans by five West African countries to establish a second monetary zone in the sub-region by December 2009. In this paper we ask whether a monetary union is the appropriate exchange rate regime for the sub-region based on economic criteria. We address the issue using a rigorous...

Trade policy has been a very contentious issue in the discourse on African development. Using panel data for 33 African countries spanning the period 1986-2000, we examine the relationship between trade liberalization and macroeconomic instability in Africa. We focus on instabilities in output,...