More than eight years after the introduction of the euro, impacts on developing countries have been relatively modest. Overall, the euro has become much more important in debt issuance than in official foreign exchange reserve holdings. The former has benefited from the creation of a large set...

US interest rate policy is shown to have a significant influence on emerging market bond spreads, but it is important to allow for non-linearities: US interest rates affect secondary market spreads differently, depending on countries' debt levels. Moderate debtors suffer little impact from an...

Africa has important initiatives to build regional currency areas and ultimately a single African currency. Calculations using a calibrated model show that the proposed monetary unions are unlikely to yield net economic benefits for all countries, suggesting that all-inclusive monetary unions...

China has emerged as a major power in the world economy, so it seems natural to consider whether its currency will also have a major role. At present the renminbi is not used internationally. We look at the factors that contribute to the international use of currencies, and focus on the aspects...

This paper proposes a quantitative assessment of the welfare effects arising from the Common Monetary Area (CMA) and an array of broader grouping among Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries. Model simulations suggest that (i) participating in the CMA benefits all members; (ii)...

A model of a dependent central bank that internalizes the government’s budget constraint is used to examine the optimal composition of the euro zone. The model embodies the desire to stimulate output and to provide monetary financing to governments. Unable to pre-commit to first-best policies,...

This two-volume original reference work provides a comprehensive overview of development economics and comprises contributions by some of the leading scholars working in the field. Authors are drawn from around the world and write on a wide range of topics.

The stability and steady-state properties of a small model of the United States and the Rest of the World (MINIMOD) are examined. It is shown that the marginal propensity to consume out of wealth is a crucial parameter, and estimates are chosen to ensure stability of the model. The need to...