Download or read book IMF Staff Papers Volume 48 No 2 written by International Monetary Fund. Research Dept. and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2001-12-12 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper analyzes the link between product variety and economic growth. It finds support for the hypothesis that a greater degree of product variety relative to the United States helps to explain relative per capita GDP levels. The paper presents an empirical study for South Africa, which indicates that there exists a stable money demand type of relationship among domestic prices, broad money, real income, and interest rates, as well as a long-term relationship among domestic prices, foreign prices, and the nominal exchange rate.

Download or read book IMF Staff Papers Volume 48 No 3 written by Mr.Robert P. Flood and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2002-01-18 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper analyzes the financial implications of the 1956 crisis of nationalization of the Suez Canal by Egypt. It examines the regional distribution of public employment in Italy. The paper quantifies the impact of changes in the U.S. monetary policy on sovereign bond spreads in emerging market countries. Specifically, the paper explores empirically how country risk, as proxied by sovereign bond spreads, is influenced by U.S. monetary policy, country-specific fundamentals, and conditions in global capital markets. Modeling the IMF’s statistical discrepancy in the global current account is also discussed.

Download or read book IMF Staff papers written by International Monetary Fund. Research Dept. and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 1986-01-01 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WILLIAM. white, who joined the International Monetary Fund in 1948, spent his entire professional life in the Research Department. Present and past staff members, many of whom benefited from his advice, have asked that his contribution-to the work of the Fund should receive recognition in Staff Papers. This appreciation draws on excerpts from written recollections of some of his colleagues.

Download or read book IMF Staff papers written by International Monetary Fund. Research Dept. and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 1966-01-01 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Foreword to the first issue: “Among the responsibilities of the International Monetary Fund, as set forth in the Articles of Agreement, is the obligation to fact as a center for the collection and exchange of information on monetary and financial problems,’ and thereby to facilitate ‘the preparation of studies designed to assist members in developing policies which further the purposes of the Fund.’ The publications of the Fund are one way in which this responsibility is discharged. “Through the publication of Staff Papers, the Fund is making available some of the work of members of its staff. The Fund believes that these papers will be found helpful by government officials, by professional economists, and by others concerned with monetary and financial problems. Much of what is now presented is quite provisional. On some international monetary problems, final and definitive views are scarcely to be expected in the near future, and several alternative, or even conflicting, approaches may profitably be explored. The views presented in these papers are not, therefore, to be interpreted as necessarily indicating the position of the Executive Board or of the officials of the Fund.”

Download or read book IMF Staff papers written by International Monetary Fund. Research Dept. and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 1958-01-01 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper examines the effect transactions with the IMF have on the monetary situation within a country when the foreign exchange purchased from the IMF is used to meet a balance of payments deficit. In some countries, the national currency counterpart is kept on deposit to the credit of the IMF at the central bank. In other countries, the government substitutes a noninterest-bearing note for the national currency counterpart of a transaction with the IMF. It is with the effects of the latter practice that this paper is primarily concerned. The effect of a balance of payments deficit on the money supply will be offset if credit is expanded to finance a government deficit, investment by business, or spending by consumers. The ultimate effect on the money supply will depend upon how the government deals with the national currency turned over to it by the Exchange Equalization Account. Considerable caution is required in concluding that a balance of payments deficit is likely to be moderate and temporary.

Download or read book IMF Staff Papers written by Mr. Robert P. Flood and published by INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND. This book was released on 2001-11-08 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper re-examines the issue of the existence of threshold effects in the relationship between inflation and growth, using new econometric techniques that provide appropriate procedures for estimation and inference. The threshold level of inflation above which inflation significantly slows growth is estimated at 1-3 percent for industrial countries and 11-12 percent for developing countries. The negative and significant relationship between inflation and growth, for inflation rates above the threshold level, is quite robust with respect to the estimation method, perturbations in the location of the threshold level, the exclusion of high-inflation observations, data frequency, and alternative specifications.

Download or read book IMF Staff Papers Volume 48 Special Issue Transition Economies How Much Progress written by Mr.Richard D. Haas and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2002-04-25 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This chapter is the collection of eight papers on different aspects of the first 10 years of economic transition. Transition issues have appeared initially quite controversial. There have been controversies on the speed of reforms, privatization methods, the role and organization of government, the kind of financial system needed, etc. Although these controversies often have been ideological, they also reflect to a large extent the initial ignorance and unpreparedness of the economics profession with respect to the large. Resident representatives in transforming economies have had a unique opportunity to witness and participate in one of the most interesting and challenging events of the economics profession in the past 50 years: the transformation of centrally planned economies into market-based systems. The job is intellectually fascinating, frequently extremely rewarding, occasionally frustrating, however, never boring. The decline in cash revenue in Russia has been the key macroeconomic policy failure of the transition. This paper argues that the fall in cash compliance emerged when money printing was replaced with a method of budget financing that did not, in the short run, compromise the government's goals of low inflation, a stable exchange rate, and low interest rates, but which ultimately has led the government into a low cash revenue trap.

Download or read book IMF Staff Papers written by International Monetary Fund. Research Dept. and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 1952-01-01 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper discusses various foreign payments practices in the United States. Most foreign payments in the United States are, therefore, done along traditional lines in whatever manner. Several nontraditional practices, however, have developed in recent years as the result of trade and payments restrictions established by foreign Governments. The amount and type of exchange sold by the US banks to their customers are limited only, if at all, by regulations abroad or by the banks' own limitations. In making or receiving foreign payments, the US banks deal generally with three types of customers which are, in the order of their importance: exporters and importers, individuals or corporations desiring to make or receive nontrade financial payments, and speculators. Foreign payments for account of individuals are usually small individually however, in the aggregate, they represent an important function of the banks located in the larger cities with a considerable foreign-born population.

Download or read book IMF Staff papers Volume 45 No 2 written by International Monetary Fund. Research Dept. and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 1998-01-01 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper analyzes contagion and volatility with imperfect credit markets. The paper interprets contagion effects as an increase in the volatility of shocks impinging on the economy. The implications of this approach are analyzed in a model in which domestic banks borrow at a premium on world capital markets, and domestic producers borrow at a premium from domestic banks. Financial spreads depend on a markup that compensates lenders, in particular, for the expected cost of contract enforcement. Higher volatility increases financial spreads and the producers’ cost of capital.

Download or read book IMF Staff papers written by International Monetary Fund. Research Dept. and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 1970-01-01 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper analyzes the determination of monetary policy is an exercise that must include the organization of information so that proper conclusions may be reached regarding the application of policy instruments. The information on which policies have to be based is frequently a complex set of interrelated data. It is extremely difficult to obtain a reasonable view of the future unless it is possible to assign some quantitative magnitudes to the significant monetary aggregates. In all countries, but particularly in the less developed, the immediate monetary situation may be judged largely in terms of the level of international reserves and the comparative rates of growth in bank credit and money. Central bankers are faced with the terrifying complexity of information and relations between variables that typifies the financial structure of any economy. In order to classify the statements and to clarify the financial relations in an economy, the bankers need an organized arrangement of the available information.

Download or read book IMF Staff Papers Volume 50 No 2 written by Mr.Robert P. Flood and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2003-07-11 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper examines sources of economic growth in East Asia. The conventional growth-accounting approach to estimating the sources of economic growth requires unrealistically strong assumptions about either competitiveness of factor markets or the form of the underlying aggregate production function. The paper outlines a new approach utilizing nonparametric derivative estimation techniques that does not require imposing these restrictive assumptions. The results for East Asian countries show that output elasticities of capital and labor tend to be different from the income shares of these factors. The paper also explores the compensating potential of private intergenerational transfers.

Download or read book IMF Staff papers written by International Monetary Fund. Research Dept. and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 1975-01-01 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this paper it is argued that in a system of widespread managed floating, as in a par value system with occasional floating, the problem of asymmetry of adjustment between the issuers of the principal intervention currencies and other countries and the problem of ensuring an effective international management of reserves remain to be solved. If the latter problem is less acute under a floating system, the former problem is potentially more acute than under par values. Although widespread floating would appear to offer no obstacle to the operation of a substitution account, its effect on the acceptability of asset settlement is debatable and it would add considerably to the difficulties of organizing multicurrency intervention. If politically acceptable, a system of guided intervention oriented to an established system of normal exchange rate zones would probably be superior to any other arrangement under floating for the purpose of promoting symmetry in adjustment, while permitting an adequate degree of exchange rate management and avoiding the anomaly of mutually offsetting intervention.

Download or read book IMF Staff papers written by International Monetary Fund. Research Dept. and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 1969 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper shows how to utilize the data on trade structure to achieve the best possible estimates of the effects of price changes, given any reasonable array of elasticity estimates. The credibility of estimates of price effects depends on thorough and systematic use of these data, as well as on the statistical credentials of the elasticities assumed. The observations show that the impact of a given price change on a country's exports will be greater, the more that country's exports are concentrated in markets in which substitution elasticities are high, and vice versa, but for most countries strong correlations of this kind are not probable. The general conclusion to be drawn from the paper would seem to be that the information implicit in the base-period matrix is not enough to yield results in which a high degree of confidence can be placed. It remains essential to employ substitution elasticities that are supported by the historical record. Nevertheless, the role of trade structure is vitally important.

Download or read book IMF Staff Papers Volume 49 No 2 written by Mr.Robert P. Flood and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2002-07-11 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper explores sources of the output collapse in Russia during transition. A modified growth-accounting framework is developed that takes into account changes in factor utilization that are typical of the transition process. The results indicate that declines in factor inputs and productivity were both important determinants of the output fall. The paper analyzes the behavior of real commodity prices over the 1862–1999 progress. It also examines whether average stocks of health and education are converging across countries, and calculates the speed of their convergence using data from 84 countries for 1970–90.

Download or read book IMF Staff papers written by International Monetary Fund. Research Dept. and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 1976-01-01 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper provides the nexus between short-term interest rates, private monetary capital flows, and the exchange rate under managed floating. It questions the belief held by many economists that capital flows necessarily have benign effects that prevent large erratic movements in the exchange rate from taking place. The approach employed in the study is to specify a model of the balance of payments of the Federal Republic of Germany including the demand for and the supply of base money as well as policy reaction functions explaining the central bank net demand for domestic assets (monetary policy) and foreign assets (intervention policy). The major finding of the study is that the experience of the Federal Republic of Germany with floating does not bear out the faith that many economists have had in the stabilizing role of short-term capital flows. Relatively small variations in the interest rate differential between Frankfurt and the Euro-dollar market have led to large fluctuations in the exchange rate.

Download or read book IMF Staff papers written by International Monetary Fund. Research Dept. and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 1961-01-01 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper presents views of Professor Robert Triffin on international liquidity and the role of the IMF. The paper is an exposition of Triffin's diagnosis of present and prospective difficulties in the international financial area and of his prescriptions for dealing with these difficulties. It should be noted at the outset that Triffin has focused attention upon some major problems of international liquidity and international financial organization. His diagnosis of present and prospective difficulties, and his recommendations for meeting these difficulties, are acute and thought provoking. The expanded IMF is nowhere clearly directed to provide an adequate rate of growth of reserves, the prospective inadequacy of which is responsible for its being, nor is it told what an adequate rate of growth would be. The reader must conclude that Triffin proposes to expand the functions of the IMF and give it a full armory of central bank instruments, but that he is unwilling to provide it with an explicit statement of policy objective, let alone any specific guides to operations policy.

Download or read book IMF Staff papers Volume 46 No 2 written by International Monetary Fund. Research Dept. and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 1999-01-01 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper analyzes the predictability of currency crises. The paper evaluates three models for predicting currency crises that were proposed before 1997. Two of the models failed to provide useful forecasts. One model provides forecasts that are somewhat informative though still not reliable. Plausible modifications to this model improve its performance, providing some hope that future models may do better. The study suggests, though, that although forecasting models may help indicate vulnerability to crises, the predictive power of even the best of them may be limited.