The paper evaluates big push borrowing-and-investment programs in a new model-based framework of debt sustainability that is explicitly designed for policy analysis. The new framework is grounded in a fully-articulated, dynamic macroeconomic model. It allows for financing schemes that mix...

Fiscal consolidation has become a central policy prescription for many highly indebted emerging market countries (EMCs). Although prudent fiscal policies tend to reduce vulnerabilities, their implementation is usually postponed. This paper is one of the first attempts in the literature to...

This paper analyzes the monetary policy framework in Kazakhstan. The authorities have been successful in containing inflation in the context of a managed exchange rate regime. Over the past two years, the central bank has taken steps to enhance its ability to regulate liquidity in the financial...

We study a wide range of hybrid inflation–targeting (IT) and managed exchange rate regimes, analyzing their implications for inflation, output and the exchange rate. To this end, we develop an open economy new–Keynesian model featuring sterilized interventions as an additional central bank...

We study the role of the exchange rate regime, reserve accumulation, and sterilization policies in the macroeconomics of aid surges. Absent sterilization, a peg allows for almost full aid absorption—an increase in the current account deficit net of aid—delivering the same effects as those of...

We develop a tractable small open-economy model to study the first-round effects of international food price shocks in developing countries. We define first-round effects as changes in headline inflation that, holding core inflation constant, help implement relative price adjustments. The model...

We develop a model to study the macroeconomic effects of public investment surges in low-income countries, making explicit: (i) the investment-growth linkages; (ii) public external and domestic debt accumulation; (iii) the fiscal policy reactions necessary to ensure debt-sustainability; and (iv)...

We develop a semi-structural new-Keynesian open-economy model, with separate food and non-food inflation dynamics, for forecasting and monetary policy analysis in low-income countries and apply it to Kenya. We use the model to run several policy-relevant exercises. First, we filter international...