In this paper we examine the main challenges in promoting an effective market economy. While the paper ranges widely across the spectrum of economic institutions and policies, the central theme is the importance of macroeconomic stability for economic growth in the medium and long run....

The paper discusses some fundamental problems in monetary economics associated with the determination and role of the numéraire. The issues are introduced by formalising a proposal, attributed to Eisler, to remove the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates by unbundling the numéraire and...

The paper analyzes the modalities and consequences of a breakdown of cooperation between the monetary authorities of inflation-prone Periphery Countries that use an exchange rate peg as an anti-inflationary device, when the Center is hit by an aggregate demand shock. Cooperation in the Periphery...

It is not common for an entire scholarly literature to be based on a fallacy, that is, ''on faulty reasoning; misleading or unsound argument''. The ''fiscal theory of the price level'', recently re-developed by Woodford, Cochrane, Sims and others, is an example of a fatally flawed research...

Jim Tobin, who died on March 11, 2002 at the age of 84, was one of giants of economics of the second half of the twentieth century and the greatest macroeconomist of his generation. Tobin’s influence on macroeconomic theory is so pervasive - so much part of our professional ‘acquis’ - that...

This paper contains a selective review of some of the key fiscal issues faced by transition economies. The twelve countries that provide the empirical background for this study have all been under Fund programs for at least some of the time since they initiated their transitions from plan to...

In this paper we examine the main challenges in promoting an effective market economy. While the paper ranges widely across the spectrum of economic institutions and policies, the central theme is the importance of macroeconomic stability for economic growth in the medium and long run....

Governments through the ages have appropriated resources through the monopoly of the ‘coinage’. In modern fiat money economies, the monopoly of the issue of legal tender is generally assigned to an agency of the state, the Central Bank, which may have varying degrees of operational and...