This paper studies the potential for the export sector to play a more important role in promoting growth in Central America, Panama, and the Dominican Republic (CAPDR) through deeper intra-regional and global trade integration. CAPDR countries have enacted many free trade agreements and other...

This paper examines the financial strength of central banks in Central America and the Dominican Republic (CADR). Some central banks are working off the effects of intervention in distressed financial institutions during the 1990’s and early 2000’s. Their net income has improved...

Output gap estimates are subject to a wide range of uncertainty owing to data revisions and the difficulty in distinguishing between cycle and trend in real time. This is important given the central role in monetary policy of assessments of economic activity relative to capacity. We show that...

This paper uses vector autoregressions and impulse-response functions to construct a U.S. financial conditions index (FCI). Credit availability—proxied by survey results on lending standards—is an important driver of the business cycle, accounting for over 20 percent of the typical...

Vector autoregressions of real growth since 1970 are used to estimate spillovers between the United States, the euro area, Japan, and an aggregate of smaller countries proxying for global shocks. U.S. and global shocks generate significant spillovers, but those from the euro area and Japan are...

This paper explores international bond spillovers using daily and weekly data on yields on inflation-indexed bonds and associated inflation expectations for the United States, Australia, Canada, France, Sweden, Japan, and the United Kingdom. The analysis starts in 2002, by which point U.S....

This paper investigates the transmission of monetary policy by private banks in Brazil during the recent easing cycle. The analysis presented uses a panel dataset with information on lending by private banks in Brazil and concludes that monetary transmission through lending volumes was not...