In an ideal world, primary education would be universal and publicly financed, and all children would be able to attend school regardless of their parents’ ability or willingness to pay. In many poor countries, however, governments lack either the financial resources or the political will...

Studies have shown that markets may underprice sub-national governments’ risk on the implicit assumption that these entities would be bailed out by their central government in case of financial difficulties. However, the question of whether sovereigns pay a premium on their own borrowing as a...

Insufficient resources and inadequate public expenditure management often prevent governments in low-income countries from providing quality basic education free of charge. User payments by parents are an alternative means of financing basic education. This paper assesses how user payments...

The need for a deeper understanding of the operation of Hong Kong's currency board arrangements was highlighted during the Asian financial crisis in 1998. A model-based approach built on hypothetical stochastic simulations would be useful for this purpose. This paper develops a new procedure of...

The unbiasedness hypothesis - the joint hypothesis of uncovered interest parity (UIP) and rational expectations - has been almost universally rejected in studies of exchange rate movements. In contrast to previous studies, which have used short-horizon data, we test this hypothesis using...

The unbiasedness hypothesis

The unbiasedness hypothesis - the joint hypothesis of uncovered interest parity (UIP) and rational expectations - has been almost universally rejected in studies of exchange rate movements. In contrast to previous studies, which have used short-horizon data, we test this hypothesis using...

The hypothesis that interest rate differentials are unbiased predictors of future exchange rate movements has been almost universally rejected in empirical studies. In contrast to previous studies, which have used short-horizon data, we test this hypothesis using interest rates on...

This volume brings together various analytical studies the IMF staff has undertaken on the Japanese economy, focusing on two areas of particular interest for both longer-term economic performance and recent cyclical developments. The first is Japan's saving behavior, the second is the remarkable...

This paper compares the hypothetical performance of various monetary policy rules with that of the discretionary policies actually pursued in Japan over the 1986-91 period. The results suggest that simple rules based on targeting growth in either the money supply, nominal income, or prices would...