Several Central American (CADR) countries with independent monetary policies are strengthening their monetary frameworks and some have implemented or are moving towards inflation targeting (IT) regimes. Strengthening the monetary policy frameworks of CADR is key to improving the effectiveness of...

JEL Cl This study constructs a new data set on unemployment rates in Latin America and the Caribbean and then explores the determinants of unemployment. We compare different countries, finding that unemployment is influenced by the size of the rural population and that the effects of government...

This paper investigates whether developing and emerging market countries can implement monetary policies similar to those used by advanced countries during the recent global crisis - injecting significant amounts of money into the financial system without facing major short-run adverse...

With policy rates near the zero bound, the Bank of Japan (BoJ) has introduced a series of unconventional monetary easing measures since late 2009 in response to lingering deflation and a weakening economy. These measures culminated in a new Asset Purchase Program under the Comprehensive Monetary...

The paper employs a heuristic comparative approach suggested by Ismail (2009) to search for evidence of Dutch disease in oil-rich countries of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC). While these countries have benefitted from high international oil prices in recent years,...

This paper discusses the estimation of models of the term structure of interest rates. After reviewing the term structure models, specifically the Nelson-Siegel Model and Affine Term- Structure Model, this paper estimates the terms structure of Treasury bond yields for the United States with...

We introduce non-tradable goods to the Heckscher-Ohlin-Samuelson (HOS) model to study the distributive effects of terms of trade shocks. We show that the employment of resources in activities producing exclusively for the local market induces a crucial association between domestic spending and...

The 2008 crisis underscored the interconnectedness of the international business cycle, with U.S. shocks leading to the largest global slowdown since the 1930s. We estimate spillover effects across major advanced country regions in a structural VAR (SVAR) using pre-crisis data. Our new method...

This paper focuses on post-crisis fiscal priorities in the ASEAN-5 economies - Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Sound economic fundamentals and timely and forceful policy responses to the crisis, including fiscal stimulus, contributed to rapid economic recovery in the...

This paper describes the compilation of the first truly comprehensive database on gross government debt-to-GDP ratios, covering nearly the entire IMF membership (174 countries) and spanning an exceptionally long time period. The database was constructed by bringing together a number of other...