This paper begins by reviewing the debate about exchange rate regimes in the transition countries of Eastern and Central Europe (CEECs), and suggests that prototypically such countries move through three stages: from fixed rates to flexible rates or, typically, managed floats, and then back to fixed rates again in preparation for adopting the euro. The paper then analyzes dilemmas associated wi...

Juan Carlos Berganza, Roberto Chang and Alicia García Herrero October 15 2003 Abstract This paper investigates empirically whether there is a negative relationship between a country’s risk premium and its net worth, as implied by recent theories emphasizing financial imperfections, balance sheet effects, and liability dollarization. We find evidence that balance sheet effects, given by the incr...

Countries have accumulated massive foreign reserve portfolios, but the reasons for doing so remain debated. I document a new empirical fact on the compositions of foreign reserve portfolios, and argue that the prevalence of the dollar supports an explanation in which foreign reserves hedge liquidity shocks to dollarized financial systems. First, I fit a Bayesian dynamic linear model to extract ...

The paper examines government spending that is financed by taxes that distort output and by the inflation tax. High inflation and low output are the consequence of fiscal ambitions that exceed the current capacity of the economy to support. Supply-side growth alleviates this tension, allowing lower inflation, lower tax distortions, and higher output. In the presence of commitment problems, reso...