We use an expectation-augmented SVAR representation of an open economy New Keynesian model to study monetary transmission in Brazil and Chile. The underlying structural model incorporates key structural features of Emerging Market economies, notably the role of a bank-credit channel. We find...

The External Balance Assessment (EBA) methodology has been developed by the IMF’s Research Department as a successor to the CGER methodology for assessing current accounts and exchange rates in a multilaterally consistent manner. Compared to other approaches, EBA emphasizes distinguishing...

This article uses a vector autoregression (VAR) approach to identify the causes of the 1990-92 recession in the UK. The VAR approach is shown to be particularly pertinent for quantifying the relative magnitude of the different demand shocks, and in decomposing them into monetary and...

We examine the determinants of external crises, focusing on the role of foreign liabilities and their composition. Using a variety of statistical tools and comprehensive data spanning 1970-2011, we find that the ratio of net foreign liabilities (NFL) to GDP is a significant crisis predictor, and...

How should monetary policy respond to large fluctuations in world food prices? We study this question in an open economy model in which imported food has a larger weight in domestic consumption than abroad and international risk sharing can be imperfect. A key novelty is that the real exchange...

The paper develops a model of a small economy that trades commodities whose world prices fluctuate exogenously, and studies its implications for monetary policy. It derives analytical characterizations of optimal Ramsey and flexible price allocations under both perfect risk sharing and financial...

This paper examines a much overlooked link between credit markets and formalization: since access to bank credit typically requires compliance with tax and employment legislation, firms are more likely to incur such formalization costs once bank credit is more widely available at lower cost. The...

A striking feature of sovereign lending is that many countries with moderate debtto-income ratios systematically face higher spreads and more stringent borrowing constraints than other countries with far higher debt ratios. Earlier research has rationalized the phenomenon in terms of sovereign...

Empirical studies have had little success in finding a statistically significant relationship between fiscal deficits and inflation in broad cross-country panels. This paper provides new econometric estimates for a panel of 23 emerging market countries during 1970-2000. Unlike previous studies,...