This book, written by a multinational team of experts, explores the changing face of central banking in Eastern Europe in the light of modern macroeconomic thinking, providing important and novel insights into the design of monetary policy institutions. With its authoritative content, this book will interest students and academics involved with money and banking, macroeconomics and Eastern European studies. Professionals working for financial institutions will also find plenty that will ap...

In Systemic and Borderline Banking Crises, a well-respected doctor of economic sciences shares his comprehensive analysis of the genesis and growth of the systemic banking crisis in many countries, providing a useful resource for students, lecturers, and bankers who wish to broaden their study of economics.Irakli Kovzanadze is an economics professor who possesses more than twenty years of professional experience in the banking institutions of Georgia, other post-Soviet cou...

This book provides a comprehensive review of recent economic developments in South Africa and the structural and policy challenges facing the authorities. Individual papers examine a range of topics such as unemployment and the labor market, recent trends in the private saving rate, the role of foreign direct investment in the development of South Africa’s economy, the human and economic repercussions of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the role of fiscal policy in economic stabilization, inflation dev...

Countries with large oil resources can benefit substantially from them. However, despite their huge natural resources, many oil producers have had disappointing growth, widespread poverty, and continuing vulnerability to oil price and other external shocks. Fiscal policy can play a central role indetermining the extent to which a country benefits from its oil wealth. This book brings together studies that provide analysis and findings on fiscal policy issues in oil-producing countries from a ...

Are the three Baltic countries, Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania, ready for accession to the European Union? Have their economies overcome the problems of transition? The answers to these questions and their implications for policy are provided in this collection of analyses. Rather than a country-by-country description, the volume provides a cross-country perspective of developments from 1994 through mid-1997. The seven sections of this paper discuss recent macroeconomic and structural poli...

Given the huge impact of the 2008 financial crash and post-crash austerity on so many people’s lives, there is a need for a concise, accessible guide to its causes and its longer-term significance. Written by an expert in political science and straddling finance, economics and political science, this entry-level summary demystifies global finance and puts the financial crisis in its historical context. It also outlines the policy responses of Western governments to the crash and the ensuin...

For monetary policymakers worldwide, developing a practical understanding of how monetary policy transmits to the economy is a day-to-day challenge. The data such policymakers have is imperfect, the maps they use are continually redrawn. With such uncertainty, understanding this complicated issue is rarely straightforward. This book, a collaboration between some of the finest minds working on monetary theory in the world, helps to provide a foundation for understanding monetary policy in a...

The Caspian Basin region has boomed since the late 1990s due to new oil discoveries, new pipelines that have diversified countries' transport options and world oil prices that have risen from below $10 in 1998 to $70 in 2006.This book analyzes the experience of the Caspian countries during the oil boom. It is founded on empirical studies, using either macroeconomic tools or an analysis of public budgets, or microeconometric analysis of household survey data or fieldwork in oil-prod...

This book explores how the financial system should be regulated and structured to achieve the twin goals of inclusive growth and financial stability, with a focus on African low-income countries (LICs). The subject and content of this book is original in that it attempts to draw on the lessons and radical rethinking on the financial sector in developed and middle income countries, arising in the wake of the international financial crisis. It includes four in- depth country case studies, of...

Emerging Europe has suffered a severe economic crisis in recent years, and is only gradually recovering; the prospects for a convergence with the rest of the EU are still uncertain. In this book policymakers, high-level practitioners and experts from central banks identify the main reasons for the crisis and the challenges for the recovery process.

The last decade has seen a massive increase in international capital flows to emerging markets. This development has offered opportunities to those countries that have opened themselves up to overseas capital, but it has also created risks. In this volume, a team of policymakers and academics from 14 different countries, as well as representatives of the international financial institutions primarily responsible for responding to the crises, examine the challenges and options facing policy...

The creation of the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and the introduction of the euro is a historical event for the EU countries. The debates on the desirability of the EMU provoked a vast economic literature dealing with the theory of the optimum currency area, costs and benefits of the EMU, symmetric vs. asymmetric shocks, alternative mechanisms of adjustment in a monetary union and so forth. Until recently, for the Central European candidate countries for a full membership in ...