This paper studies the role of an increase in foreign exchange reserves in reducing currency volatility for emerging market countries. The study employs a panel of 28 countries over the period 1986-2002. Several control variables are introduced in the regressions to account for other factors...

This paper offers a coherent empirical analysis of the determinants of the real exchange rate, the current account, and the net foreign assets position in low income countries. The paper focuses on indicators specific to low income countries, such as the quality of policies and institutions, the...

Assessments of exchange rate misalignments and external imbalances for low-income countries are challenging because methodologies developed for advanced and emerging economies cannot be automatically applied to poorer nations. This paper uses a large database, unique in the set of indicators and...

We propose a theory of low-frequency movements in unemployment based on asymmetric real wage rigidities. The theory generates two main predictions: long-run unemployment increases with (i) a fall in long-run productivity growth and (ii) a rise in the variance of productivity growth. Evidence...

This paper investigates the impact of the distribution sector on the real exchange rate, controlling for the Balassa-Samuelson effect, as well as other macro variables. Long-run coefficients are estimated using a panel dynamic OLS estimator. The main result is that an increase in the...

Based on the Johansen cointegration estimation methodology, much of the long-run behavior of the real effective exchange rate of South Africa can be explained by real interest rate differentials, GDP per capita (both relative to trading partners), real commodity prices, trade openness, the...

This paper investigates the channels through which debt affects growth, specifically whether debt affects growth through factor accumulation or total factor productivity growth. It also tests for the presence of nonlinearities in the effects of debt on the different sources of growth. We use a...

This paper investigates the circumstances under which it is beneficial to participate in a currency area. A two-country monetary model of trade with nominal rigidities encompasses the real and monetary arguments suggested by the optimum currency area literature: correlation of real shocks,...

This paper estimates a small dynamic macroeconomic model for the South African economy with Bayesian methods. The model is tailored to assessing the impact of domestic as well as external shocks on inflation within an inflation targeting framework, by incorporating forward-looking behavior of...