IMF Staff Papers articles from September 2003

IMF Staff Papers archives from September 2003

An unbiased appraisal of purchasing power parity.
September 1, 2003... Do real exchange rates really display parity-reverting behavior? In summarizing the results from studies using long-horizon data, Froot and Rogoff (1995) and Rogoff (1996) report the current consensus in the literature that the half-life of a...

Is Africa integrated in the global economy?
September 1, 2003... The state of the current debate on globalization can generally be summarized as: yes, it confers enormous benefits, but it also poses great challenges. In the case of Africa, however, even the first part of this proposition is not...

The high-yield spread as a predictor of real economic activity: evidence of a financial accelerator for the United States.
September 1, 2003... The slope of nominal yield curve, or the term spread, was shown by studies published in the late 1980s and early 1990s to have significant predictive content for future real economic activity, both in the United States and in Europe. (1)...

The art of making everybody happy: how to prevent a secession.
September 1, 2003... The world political map has undergone dramatic changes since World War II. The number of independent countries in the world almost tripled over the second half of the last century, rising from a mere 74 in 1946 to 193 today; 45 percent of...

Rationing rules and outcomes: the experience of Singapore's vehicle quota system.
September 1, 2003... Since 1990, Singapore has sought to control the rate of growth of its motor vehicle population by means of a unique auction quota system. Under the vehicle quota system (VQS), the government fixes the number of new motor vehicles allowed on the...

"Big bang" versus gradualism in economic reforms: an intertemporal analysis with an application to China.
September 1, 2003... This paper analyzes the implications of alternative paths of economic reform in the context of an economy with a large public sector that is being transformed to become more market oriented. Two alternative paths to reform can be envisaged....

Structural vulnerabilities and currency crises.
September 1, 2003... There is a growing body of literature that seeks to identify, or even predict, circumstances under which countries may suffer balance of payments crises. Much of this literature, inspired by the theoretical models of Krugman (1979) and Flood...