In the early 1990s many Southern African economies embarked on financial liberalisation. Although it is too soon to carry out sophisticated econometric analysis of this change in policy, the available empirical evidence may be inspected to see whether it lends support to advocates of financial...

This paper discusses the challenging question of whether central banks should use treasury bills or central bank bills for draining excess liquidity in the banking system. While recognizing that there are practical reasons for using central bank bills, the paper argues that treasury bills are...

This paper discusses the challenging question of whether central banks should use Treasury bills or central bank bills for draining excess liquidity in the banking system. While recognizing that there are practical reasons for using central bank bills, the paper argues that Treasury bills are...

The dilemma facing policymakers is how to combine the instruments they have available in the form of fiscal, monetary and exchange rate policy to achieve the targets of internal and external balance. Shortly before the global economic and financial crisis in 2008 most economies appeared to be...

The purpose of this paper is to explain recent changes in aid provision by examining both the economics and politics that lie behind them. Within the context of an analysis of the political economy of foreign aid, it is then possible to say whether aid fatigue is likely to persist, or whether it...

Over the course of the 1990s economists appeared to favour exchange rate regimes that were either completely flexible or rigidly fixed through mechanisms such as currency boards. According to this "bipolar" view of exchange rates, intermediate regimes were deemed to be ineffective and prone to...

Particularly in the context of the Millennium Development Goals, there has been much discussion of the association between the International Monetary Fund and bilateral aid flows. What role should the Fund be playing in helping to achieve the MDGs? Some observers have suggested that the Fund...

Considerable concern has been expressed about the prolonged use made of International Monetary Fund (IMF) resources by a number of member countries. Some commentators have seen this as being fundamentally at odds with the role of the IMF as a source of temporary balance of payments support and...

In a 2005 article in this journal, Genberg poses the question of whether countries with IMF programs have “privileged access” to international capital markets. In attempting to answer this question, he cautions about reading too much into some of the recent literature. In this paper, we...