Does a monetary union need fiscal shock absorbers helping the participating countries to cope with asymmetric shocks? The consensus in the debate over EMU argues that the answer is yes. In this paper, we revisit the issue, building on a dynamic, general equilibrium framework of regions in a...

We develop a model of a small open economy with credit market frictions of the Holmstrom-Tirole type to analyze the consequences of capital account liberalization. We show that financial opening facilitates the inflows of cheap foreign funds and improves production efficiency. Reforms increasing...

We use futures instead of forward rates to study the complete maturity spectrum of the forward premium puzzle from two days to six months. At short maturities the slope coeffcient is positive, but these turn negative as the maturity increases to the monthly level. Futures data allow us to...