IMF Staff Papers articles from January 2005

IMF Staff Papers archives from January 2005

Foreword.
January 1, 2005... The papers published in this special issue of IMF Staff Papers were presented on June 4 and 5, 2004, at an IMF conference honoring Michael Mussa. Mike's 60th birthday, April 15, 2004, presented a perfect excuse for his students, friends, and...

IMF conference in honor of Michael Mussa: MussaFest--opening remarks.
January 1, 2005... Good morning colleagues, ladies, and gentlemen. We will be gathered here today and tomorrow to celebrate the sixtieth birthday of a great economist and, more than that, an extraordinary human being, namely Mike Mussa. I consider it a real...

Reconsidering expectations of economic growth after World War II from the perspective of 2004.
January 1, 2005... I want to add to the stories about Michael. At the end of Michael's first year at Chicago, four of his teachers had lunch together at the Quad Club: Al Harberger, Harry Johnson, Zvi Griliches, and I. Each of us said that Michael knew as much as...

On the accuracy of some past and present forecasts.
January 1, 2005... When forecasts are accurate, rarely does someone comment, "That is what we should have expected to happen." However, when forecasts are inaccurate, they attract attention, usually critical, often in conjunction with an attack not only on the...

Growth and volatility in an era of globalization.
January 1, 2005... During his distinguished tenure as the Economic Counselor of the IMF and Director of its Research Department, Michael Mussa made many important contributions to the literature on globalization and its implications for both industrial and...

The Mussa theorem (and other results on IMF-induced moral hazard).
January 1, 2005... It must have been sometime in January or February of 1999, when Mike Mussa, sitting in his office on the tenth floor of the IMF headquarters building, remarked to us that if IMF loans were always repaid, there was obviously no way that the IMF...

Country insurance.
January 1, 2005... The recent wave of financial crises has challenged the role of international financial institutions (IFIs) as crisis managers. IFIs' rescue packages have faced criticism for different, and often opposite, reasons. Whereas antiglobalizers accuse...

U.S. trade policy and the adjustment process.
January 1, 2005... Adjustment to changing conditions of international trade... generally involves decisions in which the costs of adjustment must be weighed against the expected future benefits.... A principal objective of...

Exchange rate regimes: does what countries say matter?
January 1, 2005... One of the classic readings on the consequences of the choice of an exchange rate regime is surely Michael Mussa's 1986 paper "Nominal Exchange Rate Regimes and the Behavior of Real Exchange Rates: Evidence and Implications" (Mussa, 1986). On...

The 35 most tumultuous years in monetary history: shocks, the transfer problem, and financial trauma.
January 1, 2005... The past 35 years have been the most tumultuous in international monetary history. The banking systems in one hundred countries--including Japan, Mexico, Finland, Sweden, Republic of Korea, Thailand, Russia, and Brazil--collapsed in one of...

Mundell's International Economics: adaptations and debates.
January 1, 2005... Michael Mussa and I (Boyer) were graduate students together at the University of Chicago from 1966 to 1970. Much of our interaction took place in the International Economics Workshop, which was organized by Harry Johnson and Robert A. Mundell....