This paper analyzes factors that determine recent economic growth in the low-income countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States.2 The main findings are as follows: (1) productivity gains in export-oriented sectors and expansion of exports may have become the main sources of growth in...

The paper estimates a behavioral equilibrium exchange rate model for Ghana. Regression results show that most of the REER''s long-run behavior can be explained by real GDP growth, real interest rate differentials (both relative to trading-partner countries), and the real world prices of Ghana''s...

The paper analyzes the efficiency and profitability of Japanese banks from 2000-06. It uses a non-parametric approach, the data envelopment analysis (DEA) to analyze banks'' cost and revenue efficiency. The results show that the performance of Japanese banks has steadily improved since 2001, but...

Many empirical studies of banking crises have employed ""banking crisis"" (BC) indicators constructedusing primarily information on government actions undertaken in response to bank distress. Weformulate a simple theoretical model of a banking industry which we use to identify and...

Contingent credit lines (CCLs) are widely used in bank lending and also play an important role in the functioning of short-term capital markets. Yet, their pricing and hedging has not received much attention in the finance literature. Using a financial engineering approach, the paper analyzes...

In this paper, the authors argue that measured (retail price index) inflation is conceptually mismatched with core inflation: the difference is more than just 'measurement error.' They propose a technique for measuring core inflation based on an explicit long-run economic hypothesis. Core...

We characterise the relationships between preliminary and subsequent measurements for 16 commonly-used UK macroeconomic indicators drawn from two existing real-time data sets and a new nominal variable database. Most preliminary measurements are biased predictors of subsequent measurements, with...

This paper argues that UK WWI fiscal policy followed the ‘English method’ identified by Sprague (1917) and his discussants, and revived by the US to finance the Korean War (see Ohanian 1997). During WWI, UK fiscal policy adopted the “McKenna rule” named for Reginald McKenna, Chancellor...

We characterise the relationships between preliminary and subsequent measurements for 16 commonly-used UK macroeconomic indicators drawn from two existing real-time data sets and a new nominal variable database. Most preliminary measurements are biased predictors of subsequent measurements, with...