This paper consolidates previous work on the development of secondary markets for government securities, and focuses on the sequencing of measures necessary for their development. Six main lessons are identified: (i) a commitment to achieving and maintaining a stable macroeconomic environment,...

Several models establish a positive association between public debt ratios and long-term real yields, but the empirical evidence is not always conclusive. We reconsider this issue, focusing in particular on possible spillover effects of large advanced economies' debt levels to other economies'...

This paper highlights that central banks from Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru (the LA5 countries) reaped the benefits of what they sowed in successfully weathering the global crisis. The adoption of far-reaching institutional, policy, and operational reforms during the last two decades...

Many countries have moved towards more flexible exchange rate regimes over the last decade to take advantage of greater monetary policy autonomy and flexibility in responding to external shocks. Some reluctance to let go of pegged exchange rates persists, however, despite the benefits of...

This paper assesses the macroeconomic implications of scaling up aid for Benin in line with the Gleneagles commitment to double aid to poor countries over the next three years to reach $85 per capita by 2010 and keep it at that level thereafter. The analysis suggests that the additional aid...

Unconventional central bank measures are playing a key policy role for many advanced economies in the 2007-09 global crisis. Are they playing a similar role for emerging economies? Emerging economies have widely used unconventional foreign exchange and domestic short-term liquidity easing...

This paper studies how macroeconomic policies can help offset two unintended and undesirable features of foreign aid: its volatility and Dutch disease. We present evidence that aid volatility augments trade balance volatility and that foreign aid, with the important exception of years of adverse...

This paper documents the specification of a model that was constructed to assess debt sustainability in emerging market economies. Key features of the model include external and fiscal sectors, which allow assessment of external and public debt in a unified framework; public and external debt,...

This study assesses the experience of the Common Monetary Area (CMA) based on available empirical evidence over the last two decades. It pays particular attention to member countries' adjustment to economic shocks in recent years and the inter-country linkages, including the spillover effects of...