This paper investigates the shortcomings of the “early warning systems” (EWS) that are currently being promoted with such vigour in the multilateral and academic community. It then advocates an integrated “trip wire-speed bump” regime to reduce financial risk and, as a consequence, to...

The current economic crisis, more than previous ones this past decade, has called into question the whole neo-liberal approach to financial management, including the approach the neo-liberal approach to central banking. Central banks focused on commodity inflation miss asset bubbles and credit...

The Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS) is currently Ghana's blueprint for growth, poverty reduction, and human development. It represents the framework the government of Ghana adopted to foster economic growth and fight poverty. A joint ILO/UNDP team was set up to specifically study the...

.

This paper focuses on the prospects for sustained development in the four East Asian economies most adversely affected by the crises of 1997/98. These include all three second-tier South-East Asian newly industrializing countries (NICs) – Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand – as well as the...

Instead of simply relying on static comparative advantage considerations, the governments of the three second-tier South-East Asian newly industrializing countries of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand have all intervened to diversify their economies. Such diversification has included the...

Unlike the other East Asian economies which sought IMF emergency credit facilities after borrowing heavily from abroad, the Malaysian authorities simply never had to go to the Fund as prudential regulations introduced earlier had limited foreign borrowings, especially short-term credit. Instead,...

Recent studies have shown that exchange rates in developing countries have limited flexibility. In this paper we review the existing explanations for this stylized fact, using a simple framework of monetary policy in a world where firms face balance sheet effects and the economy has a high...

This paper spells out a logic for increasing macroeconomic policy space in order to prioritize the goals of growth, employment creation and poverty reduction. First, there is the need to create additional policy instruments so that a greater number of policy goals can be addressed. Frequently,...