The growing adoption of an inflation targeting framework in emerging market economies has increased the importance of understanding inflation dynamics and forecasting its future path in these countries. The author considers the case of Turkey and investigates the performance of models that have...

To analyze the main determinants of secondary market prices of Bulgarian Brady Bonds, the authors investigate to what extent fluctuations in domestic fundamentals affect the bonds'secondary market price. They also assess the extent to which external shocks affect the bonds'prices. They estimate...

The authors of this paper set up a simple inflation model to analyze the transmission and short-run dynamics of inflation in partially reformed socialist economies. The model has features derived from market economies with few producers and sticky prices. It also tries to capture some attributes...

Emerging market economies (EMEs) have experienced a noticeable decline in inflation since the mid-1990s. Whether this stable price environment in EMEs is likely to endure and what kind of policies need to be followed to ensure price stability, however, still continue to be questions of...

The authors review several studies of the aggregate agricultural supply response. Using both economic and econometric reasons, they argue that time series estimation typically generates a downward-biased estimate of the response to a credible reform. Even though time series estimates can provide...

International commodity agreements (ICAs) fit uneasily in a world in which markets are becoming globalized and increasingly competitive. Development policy - both as preached by international agencies and as practiced by typically democratically elected and nonsocialist governments in the major...

The authors examine the degree to which international cotton prices are linked and test whether such links have improved over the past decade. They conclude that the degree of linkage has improved over the past decade, in the short run largely as the result of short-run price transmission -- and...

The welfare effects of preferential trading agreements, are most directly linked to changes in trade prices - that is, the terms of trade. The authors use a simple strategic pricing game in segmented markets, to measure the effects of MERCOSUR on the pricing of"non-member"exports to the regional...

The Uruguay Round agreements on agriculture were intended to move member countries toward a fair and market-oriented agricultural trading system. By progressively reducing domestic government support and export subsidies, converting nontariff barriers to tariffs, and reducing barriers to market...

Drawing on original surveys of agricultural traders, the authors examine how traders operate in two Sub-Saharan African countries, Benin and Malawi. They find the following: The largest transaction costs for traders are search and transport. Search methods rely principally on personal visits by...